THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


SOME  OUTLINES  OF 
THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON    •   BOMBAY    •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


SOME  OUTLINES   OF 

THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

A  BOOK  FOR  LAYMEN  AND  THE  UNCHURCHED 


BY 

HORACE  J.  BRIDGES 

AUTHOR  or  "CRITICISMS  OF  LIFE,"  ETC. 


fork 

THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1916 


All  fights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1916 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  August,  1916. 


TO 

THE  MEMORY 

OF 

DODO 


2047150 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 
INTRODUCTION ix 

CHAPTER. 

I.  THE  POSITION  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  THE  CHURCHES i 

II.  THE   CAUSES   OF  THE   RELATIVE   INEFFICIENCY   OF    THE 

CHURCHES 18 

III.  THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD 43 

IV.  THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST 75 

V.  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES 123 

VI.  INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS 160 

VII.  IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO 188 

VIII.  RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY 217 

CONCLUSION:  THE  HOPE  OF  SPIRITUAL  UNIFICATION 261 

INDEX 267 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  period  through  which  we  are  passing  has  been 


ERRATA 

Page    2,  line  I.  For  Elvet  Lewis  read  Edward  Lewis. 

"       7,     "   19.  For  Jerome  read  Chrysostom. 

"123,           3.  For  on   the  plane  read   on   the  same 
plane. 


quuy  is  vain,  aim  mat  we  must  aeuoerateiy  limit  our- 
selves to  the  field  of  the  phenomenal,  in  which  "positive" 
knowledge  and  "positive"  results  are  obtainable. 

And  yet  the  soul  of  man  refuses  to  acquiesce  per- 
manently in  such  a  proposal.  We  cannot  remain  satisfied 
with  building  a  roof  to  our  house  and  calling  it  the  sky. 
Moreover,  a  little  attention  convinces  us  that  we  cannot 
attain  to  mastery  in  those  departments  of  life  where 
to-day  we  are  adrift,  unless  we  can  discover  some  sover- 
eign principle  whereby  to  co-ordinate  our  activities  and 
to  orient  them  towards  goals  which  shall  command  our 

ix 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  period  through  which  we  are  passing  has  been 
characterized  with  great  accuracy  and  felicity  by  Mr. 
Walter  Lippmann  as  one  of  simultaneous  drift  and  mas- 
tery: mastery  of  detail,  combined  with  drift  in  the 
matter  of  the  paramount  interests  of  life  and  its  direction 
as  a  whole.  In  no  way  is  this  state  of  things  more  clearly 
demonstrated  than  by  the  contrast  between  our  great 
and  constant  advances  in  scientific  knowledge  and  the 
control  of  the  world's  material  resources,  and  the  ever- 
increasing  confusion,  obscurity  and  uncertainty  in  the 
domain  of  morals  and  religion.  We  know  more  about  the 
trees  than  our  forebears,  and  can  handle  them  with 
unprecedented  skill;  but  of  the  dimensions  of  the  wood, 
and  of  the  chances  of  finding  a  path  through  it,  we  do  not 
know.  Indeed,  we  are  tempted  to  despair  of  the  possibil- 
ity of  knowing.  Our  impulse  is  towards  agreeing  with 
Auguste  Comte  in  his  assertion  that  metaphysical  in- 
quiry is  vain,  and  that  we  must  deliberately  limit  our- 
selves to  the  field  of  the  phenomenal,  in  which  "positive" 
knowledge  and  "positive"  results  are  obtainable. 

And  yet  the  soul  of  man  refuses  to  acquiesce  per- 
manently in  such  a  proposal.  We  cannot  remain  satisfied 
with  building  a  roof  to  our  house  and  calling  it  the  sky. 
Moreover,  a  little  attention  convinces  us  that  we  cannot 
attain  to  mastery  in  those  departments  of  life  where 
to-day  we  are  adrift,  unless  we  can  discover  some  sover- 
eign principle  whereby  to  co-ordinate  our  activities  and 
to  orient  them  towards  goals  which  shall  command  our 


X  INTRODUCTION 

spontaneous  and  rational  loyalty.  Such  a  principle  is 
not  to  be  found  in  the  phenomenal  world.  The  Positivist 
maxims  of  Love,  Order  and  Progress,  of  devotion  to 
Family,  Country  and  Humanity,  are  not  self -justifying  to 
the  post-Nietzschean  age,  if  they  ever  were  before;  nor 
can  they  be  vindicated  without  overstepping  the  limit 
which  Comte  arbitrarily  prescribed  to  investigation. 
Agnosticism  is,  no  doubt,  a  right  and  wise  attitude  in 
regard  to  many  questions,  but  agnosticism  as  to  the 
question  of  the  worth  of  life,  as  to  the  essential  difference 
between  right  and  wrong,  or  as  to  the  qualities  of  char- 
acter which  men  should  strive  to  develop  in  themselves, 
is  a  fatal  disease,  paralyzing  to  the  will,  and  involving 
ultimately  the  suicide  of  the  mind.  Now  the  scientific 
attitude,  with  its  equal  and  impartial  interest  in  all  facts, 
is  bound  to  be  agnostic  on  these  issues,  where  the  supreme 
interests  of  life  demand  clear  and  confident  conviction. 
We  need,  then,  something  in  the  nature  of  a  religious 
faith  upon  which  we  can  all  agree.  Yet  the  bare  state- 
ment of  this  as  a  desideratum  is  calculated  to  excite 
ironical  laughter.  What  is  easier  than  to  point  to  the 
endless  differences  even  among  that  minority  which  still 
adheres  to  the  various  organized  forms  of  religion,  or  to 
remind  us  that  a  large  majority  has  turned  its  back  upon 
them  all?  To  hope  for  a  time  when  the  existing  Churches 
shall  have  composed  their  differences  and  arrived  at 
unity  of  faith  and  polity  seems  Utopian.  In  so  far  as 
various  Churches  are  co-operating  in  philanthropic  and 
social  work,  they  are  doing  so  only  after  carefully  stip- 
ulating not  to  discuss  the  vital  principles  which  inspire 
them.  Moreover,  even  if  we  could  anticipate  that 
within  the  next  twenty  or  thirty  years  the  Protestant 
sects  will  attain  to  unity  among  themselves,  what  hope 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

would  this  give  us  of  bridging  the  gulf  that  divides 
Protestants  from  Catholics,  and  both  from  Jews  and  free 
thinkers?  Yet  what  we  need  is  a  principle  which  shall 
bind  together  all  the  members  of  the  nation,  and,  in 
time,  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

Our  only  hope  seems  to  lie  in  discovering  some  fresh 
standpoint  from  which  the  doctrines  and  disciplines  of  all 
faiths  may  be  seen  in  a  new  light  and  re- valued.  This  I 
have  attempted  to  do  by  raising  the  question  of  the 
sociological  function  of  religion.  My  first  inquiry  is  not 
as  to  the  truth  of  the  creeds,  but  as  to  their  reason  for 
existence.  What  are  those  needs  which  have  urged  men 
into  religious  fellowships,  and  induced  them  to  elaborate 
the  various  inadequate  philosophies  called  theologies, 
and  the  numerous  systems  of  worship,  prayer  and 
sacrament?  Can  these  needs  be  isolated  and  studied 
apart  from  the  attempts  made  to  satisfy  them?  If  so, 
may  it  not  be  possible  to  discover  means  of  meeting  them 
upon  which  there  could  be  the  same  kind  of  practical 
agreement  as  there  is  in  regard  to  the  findings  of  physical 
science? 

In  seeking  to  answer  these  questions,  I  have  availed 
myself  in  this  volume  of  the  luminous  and  helpful  method 
of  the  psychological  students  of  religion.  This  is  the 
method  of  distinguishing  between  experience  and  its 
theoretical  interpretation.  I  have  ventured  to  assume 
that  the  creeds  and  doctrines  of  all  the  Churches  are 
attempts  to  precipitate  into  conceptual  form  certain 
experiences  of  the  human  spirit,  certain  demands  which 
it  makes  upon  the  universe,  and  the  response  of  the 
universe  to  those  demands.  Now  since  the  creeds  are 
unverifiable  (because  their  propositions  cannot  be  sub- 
jected to  experimental  investigation),  it  seemed  necessary 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

to  turn  direct  to  the  experience  out  of  which  they  grew. 
Moreover,  it  seems  probable  that  the  study  of  the  dis- 
ciplinary practices  of  the  Churches, — their  sacramental 
and  other  devices  for  placing  the  individual  in  contact 
with  the  sources  of  spiritual  strength, — will  bring  us 
directly  into  the  presence  of  those  needs  in  response  to 
which  organized  religion  has  functioned. 

This  book  is  thus  an  attempt  to  bring  to  light  some  of 
the  verifiable  factors  in  religion.  Its  suggestion  is  that 
the  Churches  should  concentrate  exclusively  upon  these. 
To  those  who  are  accustomed  to  find  mental  rest  and 
satisfaction  in  the  detailed  creeds  of  the  older  Churches, 
such  a  suggestion  may  sound  chilling  and  disenchanting 
in  the  extreme.  It  will  not  do,  however,  to  make  the 
wilfulness  of  a  pampered  appetite  our  guide  when  truth 
and  the  other  sovereign  interests  of  mankind  are  at 
stake.  No  doubt  it  might  have  been  possible,  in  the  days 
of  the  infancy  of  science,  to  construct  a  much  grander  and 
more  fascinating  view  of  the  universe  than  was  then 
verifiable,  if  wilfulness  and  imagination  had  been  sub- 
stituted for  the  slow  and  plodding  method  of  investiga- 
tion and  experiment.  Not  only,  however,  would  such 
an  unreal  world  have  been  fruitless,  but  it  would  also 
have  constituted  a  most  effectual  and  permanent  barrier 
to  the  attainment  of  that  truth,  transcending  in  grandeur 
all  possible  imaginary  constructions,  which  the  slower 
method  has  gradually  won. 

Now,  theologies  elaborated  in  the  days  of  alchemy  and 
astrology,  and  by  the  same  a  priori  methods  as  those 
employed  by  the  alchemist  and  the  astrologer,  must 
needs  bear  to  the  undiscovered  truth  such  a  relation 
as  alchemy  and  astrology  bear  to  chemistry  and  astron- 
omy. And  just  as,  in  the  process  of  converting  those 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

romances  into  our  sciences,  the  first  step  was  to  cast 
overboard  all  mere  speculation  and  guesswork,  and  to 
concentrate  upon  the  tiny  fragments  of  assured  truth, 
so  to-day  we  must  begin  by  denying  ourselves  the  luxury 
of  indulgence  in  that  which  is  unverifiable.  We  now 
stand  in  religion  where  the  fifteenth  century  stood  in 
physical  science.  We  are  only  at  the  stage  of  beginning 
to  invent  the  new  instruments  and  to  devise  the  new 
methods  of  inquiry  by  which  we  may  at  last  attain  to  as 
full  a  body  of  ascertained  truth  in  religion  as  we  have 
won  in  our  knowledge  of  the  physical  world. 

It  is  because  of  an  intense  conviction  that  religion  is 
suffering  through  our  failure  to  recognize  the  need  of  new 
methods  and  instruments,  that  I  have  in  these  pages 
given  so  large  a  place  to  the  question  of  intellectual 
honesty,  and  of  that  kind  of  sincerity  which  consists  in 
the  rigorous  separation  of  what  is  known  from  what  is 
merely  assumed.  Hence  my  assertion  of  the  claim  of 
Socrates  to  rank  beside  Jesus  Christ  as  a  Saviour  of  the 
world,  in  the  conviction  that  his  method  and  secret  are 
not  only  an  integral  part  of  any  true  religion,  but  a  part 
which,  under  present  circumstances,  needs  emphasis 
more  than  any  other  factor. 

This  book,  I  am  aware,  can  scarcely  justify  its  title. 
The  subject  of  the  Religion  of  Experience  is  too  vast  for 
adequate  treatment  within  the  limits  I  have  imposed 
upon  myself.  I  am  in  the  dilemma  remarked  by  Seeley 
in  the  Preface  to  his  Natural  Religion:  "An  author  has 
always  to  decide  whether  he  will  write  short  or  long; 
and  it  is  a  choice  of  evils.  If  he  writes  long  the  public 
will  decline  to  read  him;  if  he  writes  short  they  will 
misunderstand  him."  My  only  possible  justification  is 
that  this  book,  like  several  others  of  recent  date,  may 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

supply  hints  and  suggestions  which,  if  worked  out  by  a 
multitude  of  other  thinkers,  will  at  last  lead  to  the  elab- 
oration of  the  new  philosophy,  psychology  and  sociology 
of  religion.  I  am  chiefly  anxious  that  the  book  shall  be 
recognized  as  an  essay  towards  a  basis  of  peace  and  co- 
operation. The  day  of  the  warfare  between  the  provi- 
sional hypotheses  of  science  and  the  speculations  of 
theology  (which  was  mistaken  for  a  warfare  between 
science  and  religion)  is  over.  The  time  has  come  to  seek 
peace  upon  the  only  possible  worthy  basis:  that  of  the 
acceptance  of  principles  recognized  as  valid  by  both  bel- 
ligerents, and  the  application  of  those  principles  to  the 
task  of  achieving  human  salvation,  by  giving  to  the  whole 
of  life  a  spiritual  interpretation  and  a  spiritual  orientation 
that  will  call  forth  a  devotion  at  once  rational  and 
enthusiastic. 

My  hope  is  that  this  volume  may  secure  the  attention 
of  laymen  of  all  denominations,  and  of  those  who  are  not 
members  of  any  religious  organization.  To  experts  in 
theology  and  philosophy  I  fear  I  have  little  to  offer 
that  is  profound  enough  to  merit  their  consideration. 
The  salvation  of  religion,  however,  must  come,  in  my 
judgment,  from  the  laity,  and  from  those  clergy  who,  by 
the  multiplicity  of  their  tasks,  are  prevented  from  becom- 
ing specialists  in  its  ultimate  problems.  Both  the  clergy 
and  the  unchurched  laity  may,  indeed,  be  weary  of  the 
theme.  I  can  but  hope  that  there  may  be  in  these  pages 
enough  freshness  of  treatment  and  suggestion  of  points 
of  view  which  have  not  hitherto  been  emphasized,  to 
engage  their  interest.  My  desire  is  to  set  their  minds 
working  in  fresh  directions,  rather  than  to  convert  them 
to  agreement  with  my  own  views  on  points  of  detail. 

As  my  colleagues  in  the  Chicago  Ethical  Society  have 


INTRODUCTION  XV 

generously  undertaken  the  distribution  of  a  number  of 
copies  of  this  book,  it  is  due  to  them  to  state  that  these 
pages  contain  a  frank  expression  of  my  own  convictions, 
the  censure  of  which  must  fall  exclusively  upon  myself. 
The  Ethical  Movement  is  one  in  which  the  members 
are  challenged  to  do  their  own  thinking.  The  leaders 
are  neither  expected  to  supply  a  body  of  dogmas  to 
their  congregations  nor  to  submit  their  own  minds  to 
collective  coercion.  Hence  the  distribution  of  this  work 
by  my  colleagues  does  not  commit  them  to  acceptance 
of  the  more  debatable  positions  it  sets  forth. 

My  obligations  are  too  extensive  for  detailed  specifica- 
tion. It  is  this  fact,  and  not  any  deficiency  of  gratitude, 
which  deters  me  from  mentioning  names  here.  I  cannot, 
however,  deny  myself  the  pleasure  of  thanking  my  friend 
Mr.  Arthur  Little  Hamilton  for  his  constant  help  and 
encouragement,  and  in  particular  for  his  practical  assist- 
ance in  reading  and  criticizing  this  volume  in  manuscript 
and  proof. 

H.  J.  B. 

CHICAGO,  June,  1916. 


SOME  OUTLINES  OF 
THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 


SOME  OUTLINES  OF 

THE   RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  POSITION  AND   OUTLOOK  OF  THE   CHURCHES 

THERE  is  in  many  minds  a  conviction  that  the  day  of  the 
Churches  is  drawing  to  a  close.  This  is  not  merely  an 
idea  entertained  by  unsympathetic  critics  in  whom  the 
wish  is  father  to  the  thought.  It  is  the  despairing  belief 
of  many  who,  by  antecedents  and  even  by  ordination,  are 
identified  with  the  historical  tradition  and  the  spiritual 
mission  of  the  Christian  fellowships.  Recent  periodicals 
have  been  full  of  the  question,  Has  the  Church  collapsed? 
and  most  of  the  answers,  even  by  ministers  or  ex- 
ministers,  have  inclined  towards  the  affirmative.  In 
many  of  the  Churches  the  leaders  are  no  longer  leading; 
they  have  lost  the  sense  of  their  distinctive  task  and 
function.  They  are  groping  in  a  twilight  of  intellectual 
and  spiritual  uncertainty.  Their  whole  tone  is  "timid 
and  apologetic,"  as  of  men  who  are  uncomfortably 
doubtful  whether  they  are  rendering  a  service  commen- 
surate with  their  emolument. 

This  misgiving  in  some  cases  has  taken  a  very  positive 
shape.  Papers  have  appeared  affirming  that  the  Chris- 
tian Church  is  in  a  state  of  complete  apostasy  from  the 
spirit  and  teaching  of  its  founders,  and  implying  that 
sincere  men  should  come  out  of  her,  lest  they  become 
partakers  of  her  plagues.  In  this  sense  recently  the 


2  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

Rev.  Elvet  Lewis  (formerly  the  coadjutor  in  London  of 
Mr.  R.  J.  Campbell)  expressed  himself  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly.  He  has  abandoned  his  own  pastorate,  and 
apparently  despairs  of  any  kind  of  religious  organization 
possible  under  existing  circumstances. 

The  Century  Magazine  for  February,  1915,  contained  a 
paper  by  Dr.  Edwin  Davies  Schoonmaker,  on  the  ques- 
tion "Has  The  Church  Collapsed?"  The  burden  of  his 
plaint  is  that  the  Christian  ecclesia  has  been  false  to  its 
mission  and  purpose,  from  the  very  first  day  that  its 
doctrine  and  organization  began  to  crystallize  into 
definite  shape  in  the  minds  of  SS.  Paul  and  Peter.  Dr. 
Schoonmaker's  indignation  is  awakened  by  the  fact  that 
the  bombardment  of  Rheims  Cathedral  was  resented 
by  the  world  on  aesthetic  grounds  alone.  To  his  mind 
the  majestic  beauty  of  the  medieval  shrines  is  itself  a 
thing  to  be  deplored.  The  cathedral,  he  thinks,  is  not 
the  home,  but  the  tomb  of  the  spirit  of  Christ.  It  ex- 
presses not  the  triumph  of  the  Church,  but  the  victory 
of  the  world  over  the  Church.  His  argument  implies 
that  Christianity  ought  always  to  have  remained,  what 
it  was  in  the  lifetime  of  Jesus,  a  direct  spiritual  influence 
of  individuals  upon  individuals,  without  doctrine  or 
organization,  without  hierarchy,  and  without  pecuniary 
endowment.  For  him  the  apostasy  began  with  SS.  Paul 
and  Peter,  the  former  of  whom — so  it  is  implied — turned 
the  religion  of  love  into  a  system  of  unprofitable  dogma, 
while  the  latter  transformed  it  into  a  temporal  power, 
destined  subsequently  to  enslave  the  minds  and  souls  of 
men. 

One  cannot  but  feel  the  earnestness  of  purpose  which 
these  criticisms  express,  and  it  would  be  wrong  not  to 
salute  with  respect  the  spirit  of  Dr.  Schoonmaker  and 


THE  POSITION  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  THE  CHURCHES      3 

Mr.  Lewis.  But  their  reasoning  proceeds  upon  pre- 
suppositions which  are  not  congruous  with  the  poor 
world  of  actual  experience.  Organization  and  intellectual 
formulation  are,  by  the  structure  of  our  minds  and  the 
nature  of  our  circumstances,  inevitable  concomitants, 
indispensable  instruments  of  every  spiritual  movement. 
St.  Paul's  theology  may  be  as  false  as  you  please;  and  it 
may  be  not  wholly  unjust  to  blame  St.  Peter  for  all  the 
sins  and  shortcomings  of  the  Roman  hierarchy.  Yet  the 
patent  fact  is  that,  without  their  work  and  teaching,  the 
very  name  of  Jesus  would  have  perished  in  the  bogs  and 
sands  of  oblivion,  and  to  evil  and  to  good  been  lost  for 
ever.  The  anarchistic  ideas  of  the  critics, — their  visions 
of  a  sweet  and  lovely  spiritual  influence,  diffusing  and 
perpetuating  itself  without  any  worldly  organization  or 
philosophical  expression, — are  dreams  indeed:  "dreams 
out  of  the  ivory  gate,  and  visions  before  midnight." 
They  owe  to  the  organization  and  the  theology  which 
they  condemn,  the  preservation  of  that  very  standard  of 
Christian  inwardness  by  reference  to  which  they  con- 
demn them.  Without  the  theology  and  the  missionary 
labours  of  St.  Paul  there  never  would  have  arisen  those 
groups  of  people  who  demanded  information  about  the 
life  and  work  of  their  Lord;  and  consequently  the  Gospels 
would  never  have  been  written.  Nor,  without  the  de- 
velopment which  led  to  the  establishment  of  Christianity 
by  Constantine,  is  it  conceivable  that  the  Christian  fel- 
lowship could  have  survived  the  avalanche  which  de- 
stroyed the  proud  fabric  of  Roman  civilization.  How, 
then,  can  one  condemn  unreservedly  an  institution  which, 
amid  whatever  tyranny  and  corruption,  has  preserved 
the  standard  by  which  its  own  shortcomings  are  to 
be  judged,  and  has  communicated  to  Mr.  Lewis  and 


4  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

Dr.  Schoonmaker  that  very  impulse  of  unworldly  ideal- 
ism which  breathes  in  their  writings? 

The  Church,  to  be  sure,  is  corrupt.  There  is  no  single 
branch  of  it,  from  the  Roman  to  the  Quaker,  which  is 
not  obnoxious  to  this  censure.  But  to  say  this  is  only 
to  say  that  the  Church  is  a  human  institution.  If  one 
is  so  obsessed  with  transcendentalism  that  one  forgets 
what  complications  must  needs  ensue  when  the  white 
radiance  of  eternity  is  refracted  through  the  atmosphere 
of  the  time-world,  one  may  say  that  the  presence  of 
even  the  slightest  degree  of  corruption  must  condemn 
the  Church  beyond  reprieve.  But  the  man  who  keeps 
his  feet  upon  the  solid  earth  of  the  actual,  even  while  he 
lifts  his  head  among  the  stars  of  the  ideal,  will  regard 
the  presence  of  corruption  as  a  reason  not  for  condemna- 
tion, but  only  for  reformation. 

It  will  not  do  to  compare  the  actual  historic  Church 
with  some  perfect  pattern  laid  up  in  the  clear  heavens 
of  the  ideal.  The  only  fair  comparison  is  between  the 
Church  and  other  human  institutions,  all  of  which  in 
truth  must  finally  be  judged  as  sacramental  vehicles  of 
the  ideal,  media  of  inward  and  spiritual  graces  to  man- 
kind. Has  the  Church  been  more  corrupt  relatively 
than  the  State,  the  family,  and  the  school?  Have  popes 
and  bishops,  priests  and  deacons,  been  more  traitorous  to 
their  trust  than  kings  and  statesmen?  Has  the  Church 
done  proportionately  less  good  and  more  harm  than  so- 
called  secular  governments?  Granted  that  among  its 
evil  it  has  done  some  good,  could  that  good  have  been 
better  done  in  its  absence? 

Those  who  feel  that  Christianity  has  brought  upon 
the  world  a  degree  of  harm  that  preponderates  over  the 
good  it  has  accomplished,  must  remember  that  the  fair 


THE  POSITION  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  THE  CHURCHES       5 

way  of  judging  the  Church  is  not  to  compare  it  with 
an  ideal  society  that  never  could  have  been  actualized 
on  earth,  or  even  with  the  best  and  most  catholic  religious 
fellowship  conceivable  to-day;  but  to  compare  it  with 
any  other  religious  organization  possible  at  the  time  and 
under  the  circumstances  in  which  it  sprang  into  being. 
Christian  doctrine,  ritual,  and  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tion are,  broadly  speaking,  a  synthesis  of  the  modernist 
Judaism  of  the  first  century  with  the  paganism  of  that 
and  later  periods.  The  Christian  element  is  tiny  as 
compared  with  the  entire  mass.  The  question,  however, 
is  whether  that  element  was  a  wholesome  leaven,  and 
whether  it  did  beneficently  leaven  the  lump.  Suppose 
that,  instead  of  Christianity,  the  predominant  element 
in  the  synthesis  had  been  Mithraism,  or  Manichaeism, 
or  Neo-Platonism  of  the  type  of  Philo  or  Plotinus.  Sup- 
pose any  phase  of  the  degenerate  paganism  pictured  so 
vividly  in  the  early  books  of  St.  Augustine's  City  of 
God  had  taken  in  the  synthesis  the  place  that  was 
actually  taken  by  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  and  St.  Paul: 
would  the  result  have  been  better?  Would  the  pagan 
hosts  that  overwhelmed  the  Empire  have  been  more 
speedily  initiated  into  the  principles  of  civilization? 

Let  the  despairing  critic  of  the  Church  place  himself 
imaginatively  in  the  second  or  the  third  or  the  fourth 
century.  Let  him  obliterate  from  his  consciousness  the 
memory  of  all  that  has  since  transpired,  and  contemplate 
the  possible  alternatives  that  then  were  open  to  the 
minds  of  men.  Seeing  that  only  a  tiny  elite  could  receive 
the  teaching  of  Seneca,  or  Epictetus,  or  Marcus  Aurelius, 
and  that  the  world  then  was  even  less  ready  for  the 
concretion  of  pure  ethics  into  a  cultus  than  it  is  now; 
seeing  that  truth  must  needs  be  embodied  in  some  tale 


6  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

if  it  is  to  enter  in  at  lowly  doors;  and  seeing  that,  even 
for  the  deepest  minds  (Plato's,  for  example),  myth  is  an 
inevitable  and  indispensable  vehicle  for  the  communica- 
tion of  that  vision  which  cannot  be  conveyed  by  lan- 
guage: which  of  the  available  tales  would  he  have  chosen? 
Which  of  those  revered  figures  wherein  men  saw,  or 
dreamed  they  saw,  some  incarnation  of  the  spirit  of 
eternal  truth  and  goodness  would  he  have  selected  as 
the  object  of  reverence  and  worship?  Can  any  fair 
student  of  history  doubt  that  the  choice  that  was  made 
was  the  best  possible, — that  the  figure  of  Christ  was  the 
least  inadequate  symbol  of  the  God  in  man  that  was 
available? 

If,  now,  it  be  admitted  that  the  dominance  of  the 
Christian  element  in  the  religious  amalgam  which 
triumphant  barbarism  took  over  from  Rome  was  benefi- 
cent, the  next  question  is  whether  the  good  done  to  the 
Western  world  through  the  historic  working-out  of  the 
Christian  process  was  in  any  degree  ascendant  over  the 
savageries  and  ignorances  inevitably  characteristic  of  a 
growth  from  barbarism  into  rudimentary  civilization. 
We  must  keep  vividly  in  mind  the  realism  of  the  historic 
situation.  That  Goths  and  Huns,  Teutons  and  Saxons, 
Franks  and  Vandals,  should  have  been  semi-barbarous, 
lustful,  superstitious,  ignorant,  tyrannical,  and  dogmatic, 
was  inevitable  in  the  nature  of  things.  That  they  should 
suddenly  cease  to  be  so  through  being  baptized  and  called 
Christians,  or  ordained  and  called  deacons,  priests  and 
bishops,  is  what  nobody  but  a  very  superstitious  person 
could  for  a  moment  expect.  The  only  triumph  of  a 
refining  influence  that  can  reasonably  be  looked  for 
is  that  they  should  occasionally  have  intermitted  their 
savageries, — that  once  in  a  while  there  should  be  a 


THE  POSITION  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  THE  CHURCHES       7 

Charlemagne,  an  Alcuin,  a  John  the  Scot,  capable  of 
better  things.  Our  gratitude  is  due  to  the  institution 
which  made  possible  these  rare  stray  gleams  of  light. 
Who  can  measure  the  contributions  to  civilization  which 
have  directly  and  indirectly  ensued  through  Ulfilas' 
translation  of  the  Bible  into  Gothic?  If  it  be  urged  that 
he  would  have  done  more  good  by  translating  Plato,  the 
answer  is  that  Plato  would  have  been  as  remote  from  the 
understanding  of  Ulfilas  and  his  contemporaries  in  Gothic 
as  in  the  original  Greek. 

The  theology  of  Tertullian  and  Augustine,  it  may  be 
said,  was  barbarous.  So  be  it.  But  be  it  remembered 
also  that  any  ethical  message  which  is  to  grip  the  con- 
sciousness and  command  the  allegiance  of  barbarians 
must  necessarily  take  to  itself  a  barbaric  integument,  in 
order  that  it  may  come  within  their  apperceptive  range. 
That  is  why  the  Latin  rather  than  the  Greek  Fathers 
became  the  dominant  theologians  of  the  West.  The  com- 
parative humanity  and  intellectual  subtlety  of  Jerome 
and  Origen  placed  them  outside  the  mental  horizon  of 
the  barbarized  West,  as  completely  as  Emerson  and 
Bergson  are  beyond  the  ken  of  the  average  patron  of 
the  baseball  field  and  the  moving-picture  show. 

For  those,  then,  who,  like  myself,  lay  claim  to  the 
noble  style  of  free  thinkers,  I  would  sum  up  the  argument 
thus:  Do  not  maintain  in  one  breath  that  the  Church  is  a 
human  institution,  and  in  the  next  pass  criticisms  which 
imply  that  it  ought  to  have  been  superhuman  and  super- 
natural. 

Another  consideration  which  must  impress  itself  upon 
anybody  who  remains  aware  of  facts  as  they  are,  as 
well  as  of  the  ideal,  is  that  the  Church — using  the  term 
in  its  broadest  sense — remains  to-day  the  only  possible 


8  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

channel  for  the  communication  of  ethical  ideals  and  an 
ethical  dynamic  to  the  masses  of  Europe  and  of  our  own 
country.  I  do  not  forget  the  enormous  debt  which  man- 
kind owes  to  the  heretics,  the  innovators,  and  the  free 
thinkers ;  but  is  it  not  equally  true  that,  in  so  far  as  their 
spirit  has  acted  upon  the  masses,  it  has  been  the  Churches 
which  willy-nilly  supplied  the  channel  through  which  it 
was  mediated?  Is  it  not  the  commonplace  of  historians 
of  free  thought  that  the  Churches  have  continually  been 
changing,  especially  during  the  last  hundred  years,  in 
the  direction  of  humanity  and  rationality?  If  Emerson 
and  Matthew  Arnold,  Strauss  and  Renan,  Seeley  and 
Darwin,  and  the  rest  of  the  liberators  have  at  all  in- 
fluenced the  masses,  has  it  not  been  chiefly  at  second- 
hand, through  the  teaching  of  preachers  who  have  drunk 
directly  of  their  spirit? 

It  will  not  do  to  hug  to  our  souls  any  optimistic  illu- 
sions as  to  the  power  of  self-education  and  self-direction 
possessed  by  the  generality.  We  have,  to  be  sure,  our 
free  libraries,  and  our  many  cheap  editions  of  the  master- 
works  of  human  thought;  yet  the  direct  influence  of  these 
is  at  best  small,  and,  even  at  that,  is  chiefly  due  to  the 
personal  advice  of  teachers  and  preachers.  Does  not 
every  public  teacher  know  that  he  can  create  a  demand 
for  a  certain  kind  of  books  by  his  recommendation  and 
advice?  The  fact  is  glaringly  obvious  that  nothing  but 
social  organization  and  the  direct  influence  of  the  living 
voice  can  avail  to  stem  the  flood  of  intellectual  darkness 
and  spiritual  deficiency  which  still  imperils  all  the  nobler 
achievements  of  civilization.  Yet,  while  the  individual- 
istic illusion,  which  in  the  teeth  of  the  facts  maintains 
the  contrary,  is  still  prevalent,  one  must  insist  upon  the 
truth,  even  at  the  cost  of  seeming  platitudinous.  We 


THE  POSITION  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  THE  CHURCHES      9 

must  not  attempt,  in  the  words  of  Milton,  to  "sequester 
out  of  the  world,  into  Atlantick  and  Utopian  polities." 

We  hold,  then,  these  truths  to  be  self-evident:  first, 
that  the  Church  (including  under  this  designation  all 
varieties  of  Christianity  and  Judaism)  is  not  destined  to 
disappear;  secondly,  that,  if  it  were,  this  would  be  an  un- 
mixedly  bad  thing  for  America  and  Europe,  and  not  less 
so  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  free  thinker  than  from 
that  of  the  rigid  authoritarian;  thirdly,  that  if  the 
Churches  did  not  exist,  it  would  be  necessary  to  invent 
them;  fourthly,  that  to-day  there  is  no  machinery  ca- 
pable of  replacing  them  or  of  doing  the  practical  good 
which,  in  spite  of  all  their  limitations,  they  actually  do 
accomplish;  fifthly,  that  if  the  impossible  did  happen, 
and  they  were  to  disappear,  the  new  organizations 
started  by  free-thinking  humanists  to  replace  them  would 
either  have  to  reproduce  many  of  those  features  of  the 
present  Churches  to  which  free  thinkers  commonly  ob- 
ject, or  else  would  necessarily  fail  of  their  purpose. 

The  present  volume  is  accordingly  written  in  a  spirit 
of  genuine  friendship  to  the  Churches,  by  one  who  sin- 
cerely desires  for  them  an  increasing  influence  and  suc- 
cess; by  one  who  deplores  their  narrowness,  their  mis- 
takes and  their  present  comparative  inefficiency,  only 
because  he  is  convinced  of  the  reality  of  the  need  which 
they  are  in  part  meeting,  and  which  they  could  and  ought 
to  meet  far  more  effectually. 

Doubtless  the  direct  influence  of  the  Church  on  our 
modern  populations  is  relatively  less  extensive  than  it 
was  in  former  days.  Here  in  America,  according  to  the 
latest  statistics  I  have  seen,  sixty  per  cent,  of  us  have 
no  Church  connection  whatever.  Some  of  the  Churches 
barely  hold  their  own;  others  continue  to  grow,  though 


10  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

slowly.  Generally  speaking,  the  rate  of  increase  has  de- 
clined, relatively  to  the  increase  of  population;  in  some 
cases  almost  to  the  vanishing-point.  There  is  here  ample 
warrant  for  discouragement.  Yet  those  who  feel  that 
discouraging  circumstances  are  less  an  occasion  for 
apathy  and  despair  than  for  an  unprecedentedly  vigorous 
tackling  of  the  task,  will  do  well  to  turn  their  attention 
to  the  other  side  of  the  shield. 

Upon  doing  so,  we  note  that  in  the  United  States  to- 
day there  are  forty  millions  of  people  who  are  connected 
with  religious  boch'es,  and  are  to  some  extent  influenced 
in  the  conduct  of  their  lives  by  such  ethical  standards 
as  the  Churches  uphold.  It  may  perhaps  be  counted  un- 
fortunate that  of  these  forty  millions,  no  less  than  thir- 
teen millions  must  be  assigned  to  the  Roman  Church, 
which  in  practice  has  been  the  least  ethical  and  the 
most  anti-intellectual  of  all  the  Christian  bodies.  To  be 
sure,  there  is  no  necessary  reason  why  this  should  con- 
tinue to  be  the  case.  The  Roman  Church,  without  any 
change  in  its  hierarchical  organization,  could  become  as 
potent  an  influence  for  personal  and  public  morality  as 
any  of  its  actual  or  possible  rivals.  Its  great  difficulty 
in  America  is  that  its  priests  are  in  general  (by  the  ad- 
mission of  some  of  their  own  body)  an  ignorant  and  in- 
ferior class  of  men.  No  Church  suffering  from  such  a 
handicap  can  rise  to  the  level  of  its  possibilities.  Those 
possibilities,  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  Church,  are 
represented  by  St.  Francis  and  Dante,  by  Pascal,  by 
Thomas  a  Kempis,  not  to  say  by  John  Henry  Newman 
and  George  Tyrrell.  The  first  things  needful  for  the 
Roman  Church  are  an  improvement  in  the  average 
calibre  of  its  officials,  and  a  change  of  emphasis  from 
the  miraculous  and  magical  to  the  ethical  elements  of 


THE  POSITION  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  THE  CHURCHES     II 

its  doctrine.  It  is  by  right  no  less  the  custodian  of  the 
humane,  rationalistic  and  ethical  spirit  of  Jesus,  than 
any  of  the  brood  of  rivals  which  historically  derive 
from  it. 

Consider  further  the  fact  that  the  "Protestant  Episco- 
pal" Church  in  the  United  States  now  numbers  over  a 
million  adherents.  This,  in  view  of  the  democratic 
and  Puritan  traditions  of  America,  is  a  surprisingly 
large  measure  of  success  to  have  been  achieved  by  the 
Anglican  compromise,  adapted  as  it  was  to  the  mon- 
archical and  aristocratic  conditions  of  sixteenth-century 
England.  It  has  of  course  been  won  by  an  extension 
of  the  compromising  spirit;  or,  rather,  by  a  develop- 
ment in  the  direction  of  democracy  and  comprehensive- 
ness beyond  anything  that  the  Church  of  England  has 
yet  attained.  There  is  far  more  liberty  of  prophesying 
in  the  "Protestant  Episcopal"  Church  of  America  than 
in  the  English  Establishment.  The  discovery  of  the 
amount  of  freedom  of  thought,  speech  and  action  that 
prevails  among  the  clergy  of  the  Episcopal  Church  in 
this  country  has  been  to  me  a  most  agreeable  surprise. 
It  is  difficult  to  over-estimate  the  influence  for  good 
which  such  a  body,  inheriting  the  splendid  intellectual, 
literary  and  aesthetic  traditions  of  the  English  Church 
and  utilizing  the  liberty  which  it  has  here  acquired,  may 
exert  upon  the  future  development  of  the  nation. 

Presbyterianism  claims  to  be  adding  to  its  ranks 
thousands  of  new  members  every  year.  That  denomina- 
tion has  also  not  been  immune  to  the  influence  of  the 
Time-Spirit.  In  the  last  twenty-five  years  it  has  achieved 
the  bursting  of  some  bonds,  and  the  loosening  of  others. 
No  more  than  any  other  human  institution  has  it  been 
proof  against  the  forces  of  mental  and  spiritual  evolu- 


12  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

tion,  as  is  testified  by  the  attack  upon  its  most  "modern- 
ist" seminary  in  the  General  Assembly  of  1916. 

And  so  one  might  go  through  the  entire  list  of  the 
Christian  denominations;  but  a  detailed  review  of  statis- 
tics is  unnecessary  to  the  present  argument.  One  should 
not,  however,  overlook  the  fact  that  the  large  Jewish 
stratum  of  our  population  is  undergoing  a  doctrinal 
transformation  in  the  direction  of  catholicity,  rationality 
and  ethical  quickening,  exactly  analogous  to  that  which 
has  so  extensively  modified  the  Christian  bodies.  In 
any  large  American  city,  the  largest  Jewish  congregation 
is  fairly  certain  to  be  the  liberal  one.  Witness  the  posi- 
tions in  the  life  of  New  York  and  Chicago  held  respec- 
tively by  Dr.  Stephen  Wise  and  Dr.  Emil  Hirsch,  in 
St.  Louis  by  Rabbi  Sale,  and  by  their  radical  brethren 
in  Pittsburgh  and  Philadelphia.  My  own  task  is  the 
leadership  of  the  Chicago  Ethical  Society,  one  of  five 
congregations  composing  the  American  Ethical  Move- 
ment. This  Movement,  founded  by  a  living  Hebrew 
prophet,  has  gone  further  in  the  direction  of  clarifying 
and  stressing  the  ethical  element,  as  that  for  the  sake 
of  which  the  entire  machinery  of  religion  exists,  than 
any  of  the  other  denominations  I  have  mentioned.  In 
the  Ethical  Movement  there  is  a  free  mingling  of  persons 
of  Gentile  and  of  Jewish  origin,  with  a  supersession  of 
that  distinction.  This  is  a  triumph  not  achieved  in  any 
Christian  Church  (except  perhaps  in  some  few  Unita- 
rian bodies)  or  in  any  Jewish  congregation,  however  ad- 
vanced. 

The  inclusion  of  liberal  Judaism  and  the  Ethical  Move- 
ment, together  with  all  Christian  bodies,  in  the  single 
category  of  the  Church  is  wholly  in  accordance  with 
the  sociological  and  psychological  truth  of  the  situation, 


THE  POSITION  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  THE  CHURCHES     13 

however  strenuously  some  may  object  to  the  classifica- 
tion. We  are  in  truth  all  one  Church,  in  spite  of  our 
divisions,  just  as  we  are  in  fact  all  one  nation,  though 
we  be  divided  into  Republicans  and  Democrats,  social- 
ists and  individualists,  syndicalists  and  anarchists.  Nor 
can  it  be  doubted  that  each  of  the  divisions  in  religion 
has  a  justification  for  its  existence,  in  the  shape  of  a 
distinct  contribution  to  the  effort  of  human  providence; 
just  as,  undoubtedly,  each  of  the  political  groups  strikes 
some  note  which  is  indispensable  to  the  full  symphony. 

Individual  religious  bodies  are  no  more  to  be  taken 
at  their  own  interpretation  than  other  social  institutions. 
They  have  to  be  viewed  in  the  light  of  history,  and 
studied  in  terms  of  their  psychological  and  sociological 
function.  When  so  regarded,  they  are  all  seen  to  have 
a  high  significance  and  potential  value,  though  the  sig- 
nificance and  the  value  may  be  very  different  from  those 
that  they  claim  for  themselves. 

In  estimating  the  influence  that  the  churches  are  exer- 
cising upon  contemporary  life,  one  has  to  look  beyond  the 
statistics  of  membership,  and  beyond  the  ratio  of  their 
numbers  to  the  total  population  of  the  country.  Even 
from  this  point  of  view,  however,  their  influence  must 
necessarily  be  enormous.  Never  before  in  the  history 
of  the  West  has  there  been  a  nation  whose  Church  em- 
braced forty  million  human  souls  at  one  time;  nor  has 
there  ever  been  an  epoch  in  which  religion  in  practice 
touched  life  at  so  many  points  as  it  does  to-day.  Gen- 
erally speaking,  the  religion  of  our  age  is  far  more  of  a 
force  in  conduct  than  that  of  any  former  Christian  epoch 
has  been.  It  cannot  be  claimed,  indeed,  that  we  are 
more  reverent  than  our  ancestors,  or  that  we  hold  our 
convictions  with  anything  like  the  burning  intensity 


14  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

of  the  ancient  martyrs  or  of  the  seventeenth-century 
Puritans.  But  we  have  enormously  broadened  that 
area  of  our  life  within  which  we  recognize  the  applica- 
bility of  our  religious  convictions.  What  is  called  the 
social  message  of  Christianity  is  new,  not  in  the  sense 
that  there  has  been  an  extension  of  the  ethical  doctrine 
of  the  Church,  but  in  the  sense  that  there  has  been  a 
fuller  recognition  of  what  is  involved  hi  duty  towards 
one's  neighbour.  Have  not  the  business  men  of  our 
country,  to  their  intense  disquietude,  lately  rediscovered 
the  Ten  Commandments?  Are  they  not  undergoing 
the  chastening  experience  of  learning  the  larger  meaning 
of  the  verb  "to  steal"?  The  Socialists  have  rendered 
an  invaluable  service  to  religion, — not  so  much  by  their 
comparatively  mechanical  and  pedantic  doctrine  of 
economic  determinism,  as  by  the  spiritual  implications, 
conscious  and  unconscious,  of  their  propaganda. 

Evolution,  then,  in  the  direction  of  mental  freedom, 
intellectual  honesty,  scientific  method,  and  democratic 
control  has  been  and  is  going  on  throughout  the  entire 
range  of  the  organized  life  of  religion.  The  Church  is 
still  imperfect; — but  so  it  will  be  on  the  morning  of  the 
day  of  judgment.  So  is  the  Republic;  yet  who  for  that 
reason  wants  to  overthrow  the  Republic  and  establish 
a  different  system  of  government? 

The  case  for  the  Churches,  in  short,  is  that  we  cannot 
do  without  them,  any  more  than  the  anarchist  can  do 
without  one  or  other  of  the  forms  of  political  society 
which  he  repudiates.  The  superior  soul,  who  is  so  dis- 
satisfied with  all  attempts  to  organize  the  life  of  religion 
that  he  withdraws  from  every  Church,  acts  as  an  anarch- 
ist would  who  should  go  off  to  the  wilderness  and  estab- 
lish himself  in  airy  and  commodious  lodgings  in  the 


THE  POSITION  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  THE  CHURCHES     15 

branches  of  a  tree.  The  political  anarchist  generally 
has  too  much  of  the  saving  grace  of  inconsistency  to 
act  logically  upon  his  principles.  The  religious  anarchist, 
on  the  other  hand,  commonly  does  try  to  square  his 
practice  with  his  theory.  He  cannot  completely  suc- 
ceed— it  is  inherently  impossible  that  he  should;  but 
he  does  succeed  in  so  far  that  both  he  and  society  suffer 
through  his  action. 

In  the  Movement  to  which  I  belong,  and  in  other 
independent  religious  organizations,  there  are  many  who 
conceive  their  fellowships  to  be  the  predestined  suc- 
cessors of  the  Christian  and  Jewish  Churches.  They 
are  fully  entitled  to  their  opinion,  since  freedom  of 
thought  is  the  breath  of  life  in  all  such  bodies;  but  this 
very  principle  entitles  me  to  express  my  own  convic- 
tion that  such  a  development  is  improbable,  because 
religious  evolution  does  not  proceed  catastrophically. 
Take  the  Ethical  Movement  as  an  example.  It  has 
been  in  existence  for  just  forty  years;  it  numbers  to- 
day in  this  country  little  more  than  3000  members, 
divided  into  five  Societies.  At  such  a  rate  of  progress, 
how  soon  could  it  be  ready  to  assume  the  functions  and 
responsibilities  of  the  historic  religious  organizations? 

Such  clean-cut  breaches  with  the  past  as  some  modern 
free  thinkers  imagine  are  seen  to  be  impossible  in  the 
light  both  of  evolutionary  doctrine  and  of  universal 
experience.  No  new  movement  is  ever  wholly  new. 
Christianity  in  essence  is  as  old  as  Judaism,  and  in  its 
developed  substance  it  is  a  synthesis  of  elements  from 
a  hundred  varieties  of  paganism,  as  well  as  from  Judaism. 
It  was,  in  fact,  a  movement  of  permeation  of  existing 
religious  organizations, — as  is  well  expressed  in  its  own 
metaphor  of  the  leaven  and  the  lump.  The  reformers 


16  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

in  modern  movements  misinterpret  themselves  and  their 
mission  when  they  talk  of  smashing  the  Churches,  or 
expect  the  Churches  to  collapse  and  to  be  replaced  by 
new  societies. 

The  smallness  in  numbers  of  these  modern  movements, 
however,  ceases  to  be  in  any  way  relevant  or  important, 
when  we  define  accurately  the  task  which  devolves  upon 
them.  Their  function  is  that  of  influencing  the  historic 
organizations,  by  stressing  the  importance  of  neglected 
factors,  and  by  demonstrating  the  possibility  of  com- 
bining the  principle  of  progress  with  the  principle  of 
order  in  religion.  The  doctrines  and  the  organization 
of  all  the  Churches  need  extensive  overhauling,  re-inter- 
pretation, and  reconstruction,  to  adapt  them  to  the 
exigencies  of  our  complex  life,  and  thereby  to  enable 
them  to  discharge  adequately  the  indispensable  task 
which  constitutes  their  reason  for  existence.  Experiment 
and  innovation  are  as  necessary  here  as  in  the  life  of 
science  and  of  industry.  Now,  just  as  in  science  a  few 
men  can  make  experiments,  which  if  successful  can  be 
adopted  by  the  scientific  world  at  large,  and  which  if 
failures  can  save  the  world  at  large  from  the  waste  of 
effort  involved  in  repeating  them;  so,  in  the  economy 
of  the  religious  life,  small  groups  of  thinkers  and  re- 
formers can  render  an  analogous  service.  This  is  the 
true  justification  for  the  existence  of  such  bodies  as  the 
Societies  for  Ethical  Culture.  The  nature  of  their  task 
constrains  them  to  give  their  mam  attention  to  the 
growing-points,  so  to  speak,  on  the  tree  of  the  spiritual 
life.  They  cannot  and  need  not  erect  a  wholly  new 
machinery  adequate  to  the  religious  needs  of  mankind 
in  general.  A  laboratory  (if  I  may  follow  out  the  anal- 
ogy) cannot  be  a  substitute  for  a  whole  university.  The 


THE  POSITION  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  THE  CHURCHES     17 

Church  must  be  so  various  and  multiform  as  to  make 
provision  for  the  spiritual  needs  of  the  entire  range  of 
human  characters  and  temperaments.  It  is  enough 
for  an  innovating  and  reforming  organization  that  it 
shall,  as  the  result  of  its  work,  permeate  with  its  special 
message  the  life  and  work  of  the  Church  at  large.  For 
the  Ethical  Movement  in  America  and  in  England  one 
may  fairly  claim  that  it  has  not  failed  to  contribute  its 
quotum  to  this  work. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  CAUSES   OF  THE   RELATIVE   INEFFICIENCY  OF   THE 
CHURCHES 

HAVING  thus  briefly  sketched  the  reasons  for  my  belief 
that  the  Church  is  entrusted  with  a  permanent  and  in- 
dispensable function  of  vital  import  to  humanity,  let 
me  now  enumerate  the  causes  of  the  present  compara- 
tive inefficiency  of  the  Churches,  and  the  definite  points 
in  which  they  need  to  reform  themselves,  in  order  that 
they  may  extend  their' influence  to  the  whole  of  our 
population  and  multiply  the  concrete  benefits  which 
they  produce  in  the  lives  of  their  members,  and  through 
them  in  the  common  life.  It  is  of  course  to  be  under- 
stood that  the  following  accusations  are  true  only  in 
general.  Doubtless  on  each  point  the  reader  will  be 
able  to  think  of  exceptions.  I  would  ask  him  to  bear  in 
mind  that  I  am  also  conscious  of  these. 

i.  The  Churches  have  subordinated  life  to  creed, 
and,  in  so  doing,  have  inverted  the  relation  of  the  end 
and  the  means.  They  have  forgotten  that  the  entire 
machinery  of  doctrine  and  discipline,  creeds  and  sacra- 
ments, rituals  and  liturgies,  exists  solely  for  the  sake  of 
purifying  human  character  and  rectifying  human  con- 
duct. The  true  principle  to  be  followed  in  this  matter 
is  adumbrated  in  the  celebrated  saying  ascribed  to  Jesus: 
"The  sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  the 
sabbath;  therefore  man  is  lord  also  of  the  sabbath."  * 

1  In  quoting  these  words,  I  take  the  liberty  of  substituting  for  the 
ambiguous  phrase  "son  of  man"  what  authorities  on  the  Aramaic  dialect 
18 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  19 

The  mistake  on  this  point  lies  at  the  root  of  most  of 
the  crimes  and  blunders  which  give  such  an  unedifying 
aspect  to  a  great  part  of  Christian  history.  The  Church 
must  now  resolutely  lay  hold  upon  the  principle  of 
Jesus,  and  apply  it  unsparingly  to  the  re-statement 
and  re-interpretation  of  doctrine  and  to  the  modification 
of  practice.  Religion  will  then  cease  to  seem  hostile  to 
advancing  knowledge.  It  will  no  longer  repel  the  large 
numbers  of  conscientious  thinkers  who  refuse  to  come 
into  the  Church,  either  as  clergy  or  laymen,  so  long  as  it 
is  controlled  by  the  implicit  principle  that  traditional 
doctrines  and  methods  are  more  important  than  the 
life  to  which  they  should  be  ancillary.  The  doctrine  of 
Jesus  is  a  radical  humanistic  one,  and  the  Church  should 
not  hesitate  to  be  as  free  and  unconventional  as  its 
founder. 

2.  Acting  upon  the  principle  criticized  in  the  fore- 
going paragraphs,  the  Churches  have  to  a  large  extent 
overlooked  the  legitimate  claims  of  the  human  intellect. 
The  whole  of  the  so-called  conflict  between  science  and 
religion  was  due  to  this  mistake.  In  their  anxiety  to 
stress  the  miraculous  uniqueness  of  Jesus,  they  have  ig- 
nored the  indispensable  contribution  to  human  salva- 
tion represented,  let  us  say,  by  Socrates.  There  is  surely 
no  impiety  in  suggesting  that  the  method  and  secret  of 
Socrates  are  as  necessary  to  the  rounded  development 

declare  to  be  its  real  meaning.  I  am  not  an  Aramaic  scholar;  but  any 
layman  who  follows  closely  the  arguments  of  those  who  are  (Professor 
Nathaniel  Schmidt,  for  example,  in  his  fine  work  entitled  The  Prophet 
of  Nazareth),  is  bound  to  admit  the  cogency  of  their  reasoning.  The 
substitution,  moreover,  of  "man"  for  "son  of  man"  in  this  saying  of 
Jesus,  is  the  only  means  by  which  the  logical  force  of  his  argument  be- 
comes visible.  If "  son  of  man  "  does  not  mean  man  in  general,  his  "  there- 
fore" is  hopelessly  out  of  place. 


20  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

of  human  character  as  the  method  and  secret  of  Jesus. 
One  may  admit,  for  the  sake  of  avoiding  argument,  that 
Jesus  is  pre-eminently  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  in  the 
sense  that  no  other  figure  in  history  has  appealed  so 
universally  to  the  progressive  portion  of  humanity  as 
he.1  Nor  is  it  to  be  denied  that  the  vital  principle  of 
freedom  and  completeness  of  thought,  to  which  Socrates 
was  a  martyr,  is  implicit,  and  even  to  some  extent 
explicit,  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  But  so  little  is  it  ob- 
truded in  the  New  Testament  tradition  that  it  became 
possible  for  the  Church  to  forget,  or  at  least  to  ignore, 
this  element.  It  has  historically  been  absolutely  false 
to  the  spirit  of  the  great  saying,  "Why,  even  of  your- 
selves, judge  ye  not  what  is  right?"  and  to  St.  Paul's 
" Prove  all  things.  Hold  fast  that  which  is  good."  It 
has  forgotten  that  the  creed,  for  which  it  was  so  anxious 
to  contend,  cannot  in  strict  accuracy  be  called  the  creed 
of  one  who  has  not  subjected  it  to  rigorous  examination. 
The  word  belief,  as  W.  K.  Clifford  remarked,  "is  dese- 
crated when  given  to  unproved  and  unquestioned  state- 
ments." We  can  easily  imagine  with  what  distressed 
contempt  Socrates  would  have  regarded  any  would-be 
disciple  who  undertook  to  believe  things  simply  because 
Socrates  said  them.2  Can  there  be  any  doubt  in  the 
mind  of  a  close  student  of  the  Gospels  that  the  attitude 
of  Jesus  in  similar  circumstances  would  have  been  the 

1 1  omit  the  question  of  the  claims  of  Buddha  and  Mohammed  because 
the  adequate  presentation  of  my  reasons  for  rejecting  them  would 
involve  a  long  and  unprofitable  digression. 

2  "I  would  ask  you  to  be  thinking  of  the  truth  and  not  of  Socrates: 
agree  with  me,  if  I  seem  to  you  to  be  speaking  the  truth;  or  if  not,  with- 
stand me  might  and  main,  that  I  may  not  deceive  you  as  well  as  myself 
in  my  enthusiasm,  and,  like  the  bee,  leave  my  sting  in  you  before  1 
die." — Phaedo,  §  91. 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  21 

same?  It  is  an  unpardonable  limitation  of  the  philoso- 
phy of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  incarnation  to  encircle 
Jesus  with  a  fence  that  isolates  his  nature  from  that  of 
all  other  saviours  and  reformers.  What  is  the  meaning 
of  the  teaching  that  the  true  light  lightens  every  man 
who  comes  into  the  world,  if  not  that  others  are  to  be 
placed  on  the  same  plane  with  the  founder  of  Chris- 
tianity? I  am  not  disputing  the  legitimacy  of  the  pre- 
eminence ascribed  to  him.  My  contention  is  that, 
if  first,  he  can  only  be  primus  inter  pares,  I  contend 
further  that  the  acceptance  of  this  principle  is  in  no 
wise  inconsistent  with  his  teaching,  and  that  the  Church 
can  refuse  to  adopt  it  only  at  the  cost  of  sacrificing  an 
immense  part  of  the  good  which  it  might  otherwise 
achieve. 

3.  The  doctrine  of  the  transcendence  of  God  has  been 
over-emphasized  by  the  Churches,  to  such  an  extent  that 
the  true  proportions  of  the  mission  of  Christianity  have 
been  almost  completely  forgotten.  What  I  mean  in 
this  connection  will  become  apparent  if  the  reader  will 
contrast  the  theory  of  the  City  of  God  which  was  elab- 
orated by  St.  Augustine,  with  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  as  we  find  it  in  the  New  Testament  tradition. 

St.  Augustine,  and  after  him  the  Western  Church 
generally,  conceived  of  human  society  in  the  mass  as 
irredeemable.  This  was  one  of  the  many  mischievous 
effects  produced  upon  that  powerful  thinker's  mind  by 
his  early  acceptance  of  the  Manichaean  heresy.  He 
never  shook  off  the  notion  of  the  inherent  vileness  of 
matter,  and  of  everything  associated  with  it.  Among 
other  consequences  of  this  doctrine,  it  followed  that 
humanity,  being  (to  use  inexact  popular  language)  a 
fusion  of  the  material  and  the  spiritual,  is  totally  de- 


22  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

praved,  even  on  the  spiritual  side,  by  reason  of  this 
blending.  Accordingly,  for  St.  Augustine  the  City  of 
God  consists  only  of  the  angels,  and  of  that  small 
minority  of  human  beings  into  whom,  by  the  arbi- 
trary grace  of  God,  a  new  spiritual  principle  is  infused. 
The  Christian  doctrine  (of  which  St.  Augustine's  is 
the  antithesis)  begins  by  affirming  the  immanence  of  God 
in  humanity.  Addressing  himself  to  an  indiscriminate 
muster  of  his  contemporaries  (who  had  received  no 
sacraments,  and  who  thus  cannot  be  conceived  of  as 
regenerate  in  the  Augustinian  sense),  Jesus  begins  his 
teaching  with  the  flat  and  unqualified  assertion,  "The 
kingdom  of  God  is  within  you."  There  are,  to  be  sure, 
inconsistencies  in  the  New  Testament  tradition,  but 
the  dominant  note  of  the  early  followers  of  Jesus  is 
that  the  world  in  its  totality  is  the  subject  of  redemption.1 
Even  the  Judaizers  among  the  apostles  believed  this. 
The  squabble  between  them  and  St.  Paul  was  not  as  to 
this  fact,  but  as  to  the  means  of  realizing  it.  In  the 
fourth  Gospel  the  entire  presentation  of  the  Christian 
message  centres  in  the  idea  that  Christ  had  come  in 
order  "that  the  world,  through  him,  might  be  saved." 
The  first  Epistle  to  Timothy  may  not  be  Pauline,  and  it 
may  be  as  late  as  the  most  revolutionary  critic  chooses 
to  affirm.  The  later  it  is,  however,  the  more  emphati- 
cally does  it  witness  to  the  long  persistence  of  the  idea 
expressed  in  it,  that  God  "  is  the  saviour  of  all  men, 
specially  of  them  that  believe.' ' 2  The  Church  must 
return  to  this  true  primitive  catholicity,  and  to  the 

1  See  the  powerful  and  unfairly  neglected  treatise  on  The  World  as  the 
Subject  of  Redemption,  by  the  Hon.  and  Rev.  W.  H.  Fremantle,  Canon 
of  Canterbury.  (London:  Rivingtons,  1885.) 

2 1  Tim.  iv,  io(R.V.). 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  23 

true  doctrine  of  immanence,  which  consists  in  recog- 
nizing as  a  manifestation  of  God  every  gleam  of  good 
that  appears  in  the  world. 

4.  It  was  this  same  mistaken  emphasis  of  the  doctrine 
of  divine  transcendence  which  led  to  the  interpretation 
of  the  sacraments  in  a  magical  instead  of  a  social  sense, 
with  the  result  that  they  became  converted  into  instru- 
ments of  superstition  as  well  as  of  salvation.  Men  have 
excommunicated  and  murdered  one  another  for  the  sake 
of  rival  and  unintelligible  theories  of  the  Eucharist,  in- 
stead of  realizing,  through  the  interchange  of  mutual 
charity  and  helpfulness,  the  true  significance  of  com- 
munion. Nobody  can  prove  or  disprove  transubstantia- 
tion  or  consubstantiation.  Nobody  knows  or  can  know 
whether  the  analysis  of  phenomena  into  substance  and 
accidents  is  accurate,  or  whether,  if  it  be  so,  the  un- 
knowable, non-spatial  and  ultra-sensible  substratum  of 
one  phenomenon  is  capable  of  being  transmuted  into 
the  substance  of  another,  without  assuming  the  acci- 
dents of  that  other.  Inquiry  into  such  problems  may 
be  an  exhilarating  mental  gymnastic,  but  both  one's 
moral  sense  and  one's  sense  of  humour  recoil  from  the 
thought  of  excommunicating  people  because  they  refuse 
to  accept  a  particular  dogmatic  affirmation  as  to  their 
solution.  Even  the  use  of  bread  and  wine  for  the  pur- 
pose of  the  sacrament,  though  it  perpetuates  a  long  his- 
toric tradition,  is,  in  itself,  supremely  unimportant. 
Any  other  articles  of  food  and  drink  would  serve  the 
same  purpose  equally  well,  since  the  essence  of  the 
sacrament  is  the  public  commitment  of  those  participat- 
ing to  love  and  charity  toward  their  neighbours,  to  the 
restitution  of  ill-gotten  gains,  and  to  righteousness  of 
life.  The  communicant  has  the  sense  that  in  thus  pledg- 


24  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

ing  himself,  he  enters  into  the  larger  presence  of  the 
over-arching  good,  and  is  enabled  to  supplement  from 
its  inexhaustible  resources  his  own  feeble  aspirations 
towards  righteous  life. 

A  similar  simple  and  natural  explanation  can  be  given 
of  the  sacrament  of  baptism.  The  advantage  of  em- 
phasizing this  side  of  the  matter  is  that  the  reality  of  the 
natural  and  social  elements  will  not  be  denied,  even  by 
those  who  affirm  also  the  magical  elements.  Whatever 
else  baptism  may  be,  it  is  first  and  foremost  the  assump- 
tion of  responsibility  by  the  community  for  the  nurture 
of  a  new  creature  in  the  principles  of  justice  and  right- 
eousness. The  most  extreme  dogmatic  theologians  will 
admit  that  the  production  of  this  effect  is  the  reason  for 
the  existence  both  of  the  sacraments  and  of  the  Church 
which  ministers  them.  Yet  how  completely  has  this 
verifiable  and  most  important  side  of  the  work  of  the 
Church  been  forgotten  or  neglected  during  the  last 
fifteen  hundred  years! 

5.  The  next  most  urgent  respect  in  which  the  Church 
must  reform  itself  is  by  abolishing  the  false  finality 
ascribed  to  the  creeds.  It  is  the  theory  of  their  absolute 
value,  rather  than  their  actual  content,  which  has  made 
them  a  barrier  to  the  growth  of  knowledge,  and  conse- 
quently, in  the  modern  world,  a  danger  to  intellectual 
honesty.  If  the  creeds  are  studied  from  the  point  of  view 
of  their  historic  function,  it  becomes  evident  that  they 
were  formulated  not  to  provoke  divisions,  but  to  put  an 
end  to  them.  Those  who  take  the  most  rigorous  and 
literal  view  as  to  their  truth  and  importance,  cannot 
deny  that  they  are  at  best  inadequate  expressions  of 
realities  which  in  their  fullness  transcend  the  limitations 
of  human  speech.  Those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  take  a 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  25 

latitudinarian  position  with  regard  to  doctrine,  maintain 
that  many  of  the  positive  statements  in  the  creeds  are 
baseless,  and  ineffectual  as  safeguards  of  the  religious 
truths  to  which  they  were  supposed  to  witness.  For 
example,  few  men  now  suppose  that  in  order  to  believe  in 
the  Incarnation  it  is  necessary  to  believe  in  the  Virgin 
Birth,  or  that  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  victory  over  death 
cannot  be  held  apart  from  belief  in  the  resurrection  of 
his  body. 

Nor  is  it  certain  that  those  who  contend  most  ve- 
hemently for  the  old  formulas,  have  fully  fathomed  the 
depths  of  their  metaphysical  subtlety.  For  example, 
most  of  the  High  Churchmen  who  to-day  in  England  are 
contending  for  the  retention  of  the  Athanasian  Creed, 
are  wont  to  declare  their  belief  in  the  personality  of 
God, — that  God  is  a  person.  They  have  failed  to  notice 
that  the  Athanasian  Creed  does  not  countenance  this 
belief.  God,  according  to  that  document,  is  the  unity, 
the  identity-in-difference,  of  three  persons,  but  it  is  not 
stated  that  these  three  are  one  person .  The  Creed  specifies 
with  careful  detail  that,  while  each  of  the  persons  is  in- 
comprehensible, yet  there  are  not  three  incomprehensibles, 
but  one;  that  while  each  is  God,  yet  there  are  not  three 
Gods,  but  one  God.  It  does  not  state,  however,  that 
there  are  not  three  persons,  but  one  person.  According 
to  the  Athanasian  Creed,  to  ascribe  personality  to  God 
is  as  unphilosophical  as  it  would  be,  let  us  say,  to  ascribe 
it  to  humanity.  Humanity  is  the  one  essence  of  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  persons,  but  it  is  not  itself  a  person, 
nor  has  it  any  of  the  attributes  of  individuals.  It  may  be 
a  little  mortifying  to  the  ultra-orthodox,  who  have  so 
zealously  contended  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and 
for  the  one  Creed  which  unequivocally  affirms  it,  to  find 


26  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

that  that  Creed  when  closely  construed  gives  no  support 
to  the  view  of  God  which  is  commonly  assumed  to  be 
orthodox. 

My  contention  is  not  that  the  efforts  of  hard  thinking 
by  which  theologians,  like  other  philosophers,  have  en- 
deavoured to  define  the  nature  of  ultimate  reality,  should 
be  given  up.  One  of  the  greatest  sins  and  dangers  of  the 
present  age  is  its  mental  indolence.  I  protest  only  against 
the  ascription  of  finality  to  the  metaphysics  of  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries.  The  early  Church,  by  summoning 
representative  councils  and  concentrating  co-operative 
intellectual  effort  upon  the  attempt  to  formulate  the 
deepest  truths  cognizable  by  the  mind  of  man,  set  an 
excellent  example,  which  ought  to  be  followed  to-day. 
We  have  had  to  wait  for  Bergson  and  the  Pragmatists  to 
remind  us  that  a  valid  philosophy  cannot  be  the  work  of 
any  single  thinker.  Co-operative  efforts,  renewed  from 
age  to  age,  will  be  necessary  to  deepen  our  insight  into 
the  nature  of  ultimate  reality;  yet,  even  so,  it  would 
almost  seem  that  this  must  for  ever  remain  in  its  inmost 
essence  incognizable.  For  this  very  reason,  however,  we 
should  repudiate  the  suggestion  that  the  thinking  of  the 
fifth  century  attained  the  utmost  depth  of  the  know- 
ledge of  truth  "that  the  mortal  glass  wherein  we  con- 
template can  show  us." 

I  plead,  then,  not  so  much  for  the  rejection  of  the 
traditional  creeds  as  for  the  right  of  every  age  to  formu- 
late its  own  creed.  The  so-called  Athanasian  formula 
may  well  stand  on  record  as  a  monument  of  the  insight 
and  of  the  intense  mental  labour  of  those  by  whom  it  was 
drawn  up.  But  the  policy  of  the  Church  should  be  to 
offer  such  documents  only  as  a  challenge  to  the  minds 
of  its  members  in  successive  ages.  By  so  doing,  it  would 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  27 

not  only  make  possible  a  virile  development  of  thought 
and  speculation,  but  it  would  also  remove  the  handicap 
under  which  many  of  its  most  conscientious  members  and 
ministers  are  now  labouring. 

To  this  catalogue  of  the  shortcomings  of  the  Church,  I 
may  be  permitted  to  add  two  more  points,  which  arise 
from  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  our  immediate  situa- 
tion: 

1.  The  activity  of  the  clergy  in  every  good  work. 

2.  The  lowering  of  the  mental  and  moral  calibre  of  the 
ministry. 

i.  In  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett's  amusing  play  entitled 
"What  the  Public  Wants,"  a  millionaire  newspaper 
proprietor,  who  quite  frankly  is  out  to  make  money  and 
cares  nothing  about  the  effect  of  his  publications  on  the 
minds  and  morals  of  the  public,  gets  into  a  high  state  of 
virtuous  indignation  at  the  suggestion  that  his  journals 
ought  to  elevate  the  mind  and  taste  of  the  public  instead 
of  depraving  them.  He  is  angry  with  his  critics  for  sug- 
gesting that  he  ought  to  be  (as  he  puts  it)  "a  sort  of  cross 
between  General  Booth,  H.  G.  Wells,  and  the  Hague 
Conference." 

Now,  the  chief  difficulty  under  which  the  minister  of 
religion  labours  to-day,  is  that  the  American  public  does 
seriously  expect  him  to  be  a  compound  of  Miss  Jane 
Addams,  Dr.  Graham  Taylor,  Professor  Zueblin,  and 
Billy  Sunday;  and  the  worst  of  it  is  that  the  minister 
usually  acquiesces  in  this  conception  of  his  job.  By 
honestly  attempting  to  be  all  these  various  things  to  all 
men,  he  succeeds  in  being  none  of  them,  and  incidentally 
sacrifices  his  equipment  for  his  special  and  distinctive 


28  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

function.  It  is  this  state  of  things  which  constitutes  the 
most  imminent  danger  to  the  Church.  Either  the 
Church  has  a  perfectly  dignified  and  distinct  task,  which 
is  not  that  of  Mr.  Zueblin  or  Dr.  Taylor  or  Miss  Addams, 
or  else  it  is  a  belated  imposture  which  only  cumbers  the 
ground. 

The  extent  to  which  the  clergy  have  lost  sight  of  their 
special  function,  and  of  the  means  necessary  to  its  dis- 
charge, is  painfully  illustrated  on  many  sides.  Take,  for 
example,  the  recent  book  by  Dr.  Paul  Moore  Strayer 
on  The  Reconstruction  of  the  Church.  Dr.  Strayer 
speaks  for  Presbyterianism;  and,  without  any  criticism 
of  his  personal  qualifications,  it  may  be  said  that  if  his 
own  point  of  view  and  that  which  he  gently  criticizes  are 
generally  shared  in  that  denomination,  one  need  look  no 
further  for  the  cause  of  its  relative  failure.  Many  Presby- 
terians, like  other  church-members,  are  obsessed  with 
the  idea  of  "efficiency."  They  compare  the  Church  with 
the  factory,  using  the  graceful  and  suggestive  term 
"plant"  to  describe  both  institutions.  As  in  the  factory 
there  is  supposed  to  be  a  rigorous  elimination  of  unpro- 
ductive machinery  and  effort,  so  these  reformers  want  to 
have  each  item  of  church  activity  measured  up,  cata- 
logued, card-indexed,  and  all  the  rest  of  it,  and  to  have 
everything  cast  out  or  changed  which  does  not  produce 
measurable  returns. 

Incidentally  one  may  remark  that  the  accepted  notion 
that  business  is  efficient  is  an  enormous  illusion.  Because 
individual  units  of  production  are  organized  with  scien- 
tific precision,  we  jump  to  the  conclusion  (sedulously 
fostered  by  the  friends  of  things  as  they  are)  that  business 
generally  is  entitled  to  the  same  commendation.  Now 
the  only  way  to  judge  of  industry  is  to  take  distribution 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  29 

together  with  production,  and  to  consider  both  from  the 
point  of  view  of  national  economics  and  national  well- 
being.  So  regarded,  business  in  all  the  great  industrial 
nations  is  still  chaotic,  wasteful,  and  in  large  measure 
inefficient.  A  river  in  which  there  is  always  an  ample 
diet  for  the  sharks  would  naturally  be  a  paragon  of 
efficiency  from  the  sharks'  point  of  view;  but  if  one 
regards  the  river  from  the  point  of  view  of  God,  so  to 
speak,  it  may  appear  to  be  quite  otherwise.  Such  (be  it 
gently  whispered)  is  the  state  of  things  in  regard  to 
business. 

Under  this  characteristic  obsession — for  which,  indeed, 
they  are  not  to  be  blamed,  since  so  few  of  us  escape  it — 
many  people  have  come  to  think  that  a  Church  ought 
to  be,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  a  soup-kitchen,  a  gym- 
nasium, a  university  extension  centre,  a  social  settlement, 
a  labour  bureau,  and  a  headquarters  of  political  reform 
activity;  and,  in  virtue  of  being  all  these  things,  it  may 
induce  a  few  people  to  come  on  Sundays,  as  a  sort  of 
indulgence  to  the  old-fashioned  views  of  the  parson,  to 
hear  a  few  apologetic  remarks,  sandwiched  in  between 
concert  items,  about  God  and  the  soul.  This  reminds  one 
of  the  device  resorted  to  by  the  Nonconformist  bodies  of 
England  to  attract  the  working  class.  They  frankly 
despair  of  getting  working-men  to  come  to  regular  serv- 
ices, and  so  they  have  invented  the  nondescript  per- 
formance entitled  "a  pleasant  Sunday  afternoon" — the 
adjective  being  presumably  intended  to  mark  the  broad 
distinction  between  the  afternoon  and  the  morning  and 
evening  events.  At  this  performance  there  is  singing, 
and  sometimes  a  brass  or  stringed  band, — to  emphasize 
the  pleasantness, — and  a  speech  by  an  outsider  (it  would 
never  do  to  put  the  parson  up!)  on  eugenics,  woman 


30  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

suffrage,  trade  unionism,  Liberal  or  Labour  politics — in 
fact,  any  mortal  subject  under  heaven  except  religion; 
and  at  the  end  of  the  year  the  Church  comes  out  with  a 
flourish  of  statistics,  rejoicing  in  the  fashion  in  which 
it  has  attracted  the  "lapsed  masses."  The  favourite 
phrase  in  advertising  these  performances  is  "brief,  bright, 
brotherly."  It  is  all  very  well,  of  course;  but  it  is  in  fact  a 
confession  of  the  failure  of  the  Church  to  do  what  it  is 
there  to  do. 

The  idea  of  the  institutional  Church  and  of  the  poly- 
math parson,  when  it  is  not  taken  for  granted,  is  de- 
fended on  the  ground  that  the  first  apostles  of  Chris- 
tianity made  it  a  part  of  their  task  to  provide  for  the 
needs  of  the  poor,  and  that  in  its  catacomb  days  (when 
its  members  were  mainly  of  the  slave  class)  the  Church 
was  a  kind  of  combination  labour  union,  sick-benefit 
society,  and  burial  club. 

Yet  what  an  unreflecting  conservatism  is  that  which 
would  base  the  programme  of  the  Church  to-day  upon 
the  precedent  of  things  done  under  stress  of  necessity 
by  the  Church  of  the  first  three  centuries!  This  very 
defence  overlooks  the  fact  that  the  apostles,  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment,  handed  over  their  charity-organization 
and  social-settlement  work  to  others,  explicitly  on  the 
ground  that  "It  is  not  reason  that  we  should  leave  the 
word  of  God  and  serve  tables."  1  These  first  promul- 
gators  of  the  Christian  evangel  were  conscious  of  a  dis- 
tinctive task,  for  which  they  did  not  feel  it  necessary 
covertly  to  apologize,  and  which  they  would  not  sugar- 
coat  by  commending  themselves  to  the  public  upon  all 
sorts  of  adventitious  grounds.  Paul  and  Peter  would 
not  have  been  willing  to  waste  hours  listening  to  some 

1  Acts  vi,  2. 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  31 

applicant  for  work  or  charitable  relief.  They  had  other 
and  more  important  business  on  hand.  Yet  to-day  if  a 
minister  denies  himself  to  such  applicants,  he  is  stig- 
matized as  unchristian.  It  is  his  "job"  to  be  at  every- 
body's beck  and  call,  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night. 
You  need  not  make  an  appointment  with  him.  It  is 
not  as  though  he  were  a  doctor  or  a  lawyer  or  a  dentist, 
or  any  other  kind  of  a  real  man.  He  only  has  to  preach 
on  Sundays,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  hundred  and  sixty- 
eight  hours  of  the  week  he  is  everybody's  obsequious 
factotum ! 

Now,  although  this  intolerable  state  of  things  is  largely 
acquiesced  in  by  the  ministers  themselves,  it  neverthe- 
less spells  the  ruin  of  their  work.  The  function  of  the 
clergy  is  that  of  teachers  and  edifiers.  It  is  their  duty 
to  see  that  their  congregations  develop  continually  in 
mind  and  soul,  that  they  learn  more  from  year  to  year, 
that  they  grow  more  refined,  more  morally  sensitive, 
more  responsive  to  that  spiritual  challenge  of  reality  as 
a  whole,  which  is  poetically  described  as  the  voice  and 
the  hand  of  God.  Wherever  this  is  not  happening  the 
Church  is  failing,  even  though  it  be  raising  millions  of 
dollars  for  building  and  organization  and  for  so-called 
institutional  work.1 

The  reference  to  apostolic  precedent,  moreover,  ig- 
nores the  crucial  fact  that  in  the  modern  world  the  prin- 
ciple of  division  of  labour  and  differentiation  of  function 

1  The  way  in  which  preachers  are  beginning  to  disparage  their  essential 
function  is  illustrated  by  the  following  words  of  Dr.  Strayer,  in  the  volume 
to  which  I  have  referred:  "Pastors  give  their  time  to  the  preparation 
of  sermons  for  people  who  have  heard  enough  sermons  to  make  them 
saints  if  they  practised  one  in  fifty."  It  apparently  does  not  occur  to 
him  that  the  failure  of  the  hearers  to  practise  what  is  preached  to  them 
shows  that  there  must  be  something  wrong  with  the  sermons. 


32  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

has  led  to  the  development  of  specific  social  organs,  each 
entrusted  with  the  expert  handling  of  some  one  depart- 
ment of  the  manifold  work  which  the  institutional  Church 
attempts  to  generalize.  This  principle  of  division  of 
labour  renders  it  manifestly  impossible  for  any  Church 
to  be  efficient  in  so  many  different  activities  at  once. 
Moreover,  in  so  far  as  it  undertakes  them,  even  though 
successfully,  it  is  not  a  Church. 

Suppose,  to  take  a  perfectly  accurate  analogy,  a  school 
attempted  to  become  an  "omnium  gatherum"  of  all 
sorts  of  philanthropies,  social  and  political  reform  ac- 
tivities, and  labour  organizations,  meantime  apologizing 
to  its  pupils  for  introducing  occasional  sugar-coated 
references  to  reading,  writing,  arithmetic  and  the  like. 
It  could  not  but  be  a  hopeless  failure  as  a  school,  as  well 
as  in  each  of  the  other  attempted  activities. 

This  analogy  is  the  most  exact  that  one  could  choose, 
because  the  Church  is  in  fact  a  school,  and  must  return 
to  the  conception  of  itself  as  such.  It  is  a  school,  the 
purpose  of  which  is  not  only  to  teach  one  special  subject, 
but  also  to  give  instruction  from  a  special  point  of  view, 
and  for  a  definite  end,  that  shall  cover  all  the  manifold 
activities  and  interests  of  life.  It  may  be  said  that  the 
education  given  in  the  ordinary  school  is  not  religious; 
to  which  I  would  briefly  reply  that  it  is  not  then  educa- 
tion. Even  technical  instruction  fails  of  its  main  value 
if  it  is  not  inspired  by  and  directed  towards  ideal  ends. 
Or  if  it  be  said  that  the  religious  work  of  the  Church  is 
not  education,  my  answer  is  then  that  it  is  not  religion. 
Religion  is  the  focussing  of  enlightened  attention  upon 
the  sources  of  the  supreme  blessings  of  life,  to  obtain 
them  and  to  secure  their  permanence  and  increase. 
Education  that  does  not  truly  direct  the  will  to  this  end 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  33 

is  an  imposture,  and  a  Church  that  does  not  deepen  and 
multiply  men's  powers  of  reacting  to  and  increasing  the 
sum-total  of  the  good  in  the  world  is  a  failure. 

To  put  my  case  in  the  briefest  and  most  challenging 
form  possible,  I  would  say  that  those  things  which  the 
Churches  to-day  sugar-coat  and  apologize  for,  or  bury 
under  a  mass  of  adventitious  activities,  are  the  only 
things  with  which  they  have  any  legitimate  business; 
to  wit,  God,  the  soul,  and  salvation. 

The  reader,  I  trust,  will  not  do  me  the  injustice  of 
supposing  that  in  thus  seeking  to  single  out  the  special 
function  of  the  Church,  I  am  casting  the  least  discredit 
upon  the  legitimate  sphere  of  the  other  activities  with 
which  it  concerns  itself  to-day.  Of  course  we  want  social 
settlements;  but  these  can  only  be  efficient  when  they 
are  the  exclusive  concern  of  workers  who  have  received 
a  special  and  expert  training  in  their  conduct  and  man- 
agement. Certainly  we  cannot  do  without  recreational 
centres  for  the  young,  especially  in  view  of  the  abom- 
inable conditions  of  slum  tenement  life  that  we  so  cruelly 
and  foolishly  tolerate  in  our  great  cities.  But  here  again 
is  a  function  that  cannot  be  discharged  by  casual  and 
overworked  amateurs.  We  need  employment  bureaus 
and  labour  unions,  and  we  need — heaven  knows  we 
need — organizations  for  the  elimination  of  political 
corruption  and  the  cultivation  of  political  intelligence. 
But  the  conduct  of  each  of  these  is  (or  should  be)  the 
work  of  an  expert  specialist,  who  should  devote  to  it 
the  whole  of  his  time  and  brains.  The  first  condition  of 
the  "efficiency"  we  worship  is  the  principle  of  one  man 
one  job.  The  parson,  like  the  cobbler,  must  stick  to 
his  last. 

No  lesson,  moreover,  is  now  clearer  than  the  fact 


34  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

that  these  various  reforming  and  philanthropic  activities 
cannot  be  carried  out  on  a  sufficiently  large  scale  except 
by  the  action  of  the  community  as  a  whole.  Private- 
enterprise  philanthropies  are  good  and  necessary  because 
they  serve  to  blaze  the  trail  which  the  community  may 
afterwards  follow.  They  are  investigation  centres,  to 
make  known  the  facts  and  to  plan  the  machinery  for 
adequate  relief.  It  is  self-evident,  for  example,  that 
the  unemployment  problem  not  only  cannot  be  solved, 
but  cannot  even  be  understood,  until  we  have  a  national 
system  of  labour  exchanges  established  in  every  indus- 
trial centre  of  the  country,  with  an  efficiently  elaborated 
machinery  of  co-operation.  Such  an  organization  is 
far  too  vast  for  any  private  body  to  attempt,  and  it 
must  be  armed  with  powers  of  inquiry  and  of  action 
which  could  not  be  entrusted  to  any  unofficial  set  of 
persons.  Now,  what  is  true  in  regard  to  unemployment 
is  no  less  true  in  regard  to  the  manifold  provision  for 
women  and  children,  and  for  the  unassimilated  immi- 
grant, which  the  new  social  conscience  demands. 

If,  then,  even  specialized  and  scientific  private  organ- 
izations cannot  deal  adequately  with  our  problems,  how 
much  more  hopeless  must  be  the  attempt  of  the  Church 
to  deal  with  them  in  gross ! 

The  difference  between  the  Church  and  other  schools 
is  that  the  Church  has  constantly  to  keep  in  view  life 
as  a  whole,  and  to  regard  the  building  up  of  character 
and  the  generation  of  enthusiasm  for  righteousness  as 
its  direct  and  immediate  end.  Education  should,  in 
any  case,  be  lifelong,  and  the  Church  is  the  only  organi- 
zation which  preserves  even  the  tradition  of  this  great 
truth.  The  Church  may  be  defined  as  at  once  a  school 
of  the  humanities  for  adults,  and  a  store-house  and 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  35 

distributing  centre  of  character-building  force  both  for 
adults  and  children.  (I  speak,  of  course,  of  what  it 
ought  to  be:  not  of  what  it  usually  is.)  It  has  here  a 
function  which  will  permanently  tax  the  highest  ener- 
gies of  those  devoted  to  its  service.  No  man  can  be 
too  good,  and  no  man's  time  can  be  too  long,  for  this 
supreme  task.  The  clergyman  ought  to  reserve  at  least 
four  hours  of  every  working  day  (that  is,  of  every  day) 
for  reading  and  study,  apart  from  the  immediate  work 
of  preparing  his  discourses  and  his  material  for  class 
teaching.  If  he  does  this  conscientiously,  he  may,  by 
the  time  he  is  forty,  be  really  competent  to  grapple  with 
the  complex  moral  and  spiritual  needs  of  our  age.  In 
doing  this  work,  he  ought  to  be  as  jealous  of  his  time, 
and  of  the  claims  of  his  task,  as  any  banker  or  editor 
or  doctor  or  lawyer.  He  ought  to  repudiate  as  essen- 
tially unreasonable  the  idea  that  he  is  to  be  constantly 
at  the  disposal  of  the  out-of-work,  or  of  idle  members 
of  his  congregation  seeking  the  luxury  of  private  spirit- 
ual consultation  and  personally  administered  soothing 
syrup.  To  be  sure,  he  needs  contact  with  life  as  well 
as  with  books.  But  this  he  should  seek  at  set  times,  and 
he  should  keep  it  rigorously  under  his  own  control.  He 
must  not  suffer  his  studies  to  be  rendered  impossible 
through  the  unreasonable  demands  of  those  who  have 
no  respect  for  his  time  and  his  peculiar  task. 

The  Church,  then,  being,  as  I  have  said,  a  school  of 
the  humanities,  and  a  centre  of  character-building  force — 
this,  and  nothing  else — is  only  indirectly  concerned  with 
activities  which  do  not  promote  this  end.  Its  business 
is  to  bring  the  sum-total  of  the  good  in  the  world 
(conveniently  called  God)  to  the  reinforcement  of  the 
good  tendencies  and  the  overthrow  of  the  bad  ones  in 


36  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

the  individual,  and  to  the  purification  of  the  common 
life. 

Now  to  the  attainment  of  these  ends  various  means 
are  necessary.  Every  means  which  does  in  any  degree 
achieve  them  is  to  that  extent  justified  by  its  results. 
All  such  instrumentalities  are  as  natural,  as  legitimate, 
and  as  controllable  as  those  by  which  schools  are  con- 
ducted or  steamships  run. 

The  educational  work  of  the  Church  must  be  done 
in  part  logically,  by  direct  teaching,  and  in  part  psy- 
chologically, by  indirect  teaching  through  atmosphere 
and  suggestion.  All  the  arts  should  be  pressed  into 
service  to  this  end,  since  all  of  them  are  indispensable 
to  the  full  development  of  the  mind  and  the  rounded 
and  harmonious  balance  of  qualities  that  constitutes  a 
rich  and  mellow  soul.  Architecture,  music,  painting, 
sculpture,  ritual,  sacraments,  vestments,  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  Church's  instrumentalities — including  per- 
haps many  things  that  it  has  never  yet  tried — are  legiti- 
mate, if  and  in  so  far  as  they  help  towards  mental  de- 
velopment and  spiritual  edification;  and  all  of  them  are 
necessary  if  it  be  found  that  the  full  stature  and  the 
perfect  grace  of  character  cannot  be  achieved  without 
them. 

For  certain  types  of  human  beings,  any  one  or  more 
of  these  means  may  be  superfluous.  But  for  mankind 
in  the  mass  they  are  all  necessary.  Every  form  of  re- 
ligious ritual,  from  the  gray  silence  of  Quakerism  to 
the  utmost  elaboration  of  the  Roman  High  Mass,  is 
perfectly  natural,  and  if  it  were  directed  to  the  ends 
that  I  have  suggested,  it  would  be  perfectly  legitimate. 
Human  salvation  is  too  large  and  complex  an  end  to  be 
attained  by  any  single  means.  It  is  too  vital  to  be  en- 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  37 

dangered  by  the  setting  up  of  unverifiable  dogmas  as 
barriers  between  the  individual  and  the  natural  devices 
by  which  he  could  be  helped. 

The  reason  why  artistic  and  ritualistic  aids  to  re- 
ligious edification  are  by  many  good  people  thought 
dangerous  is  quite  easy  to  see.  It  is  because  these  things 
are  enormously  powerful,  and  because  they  have  un- 
doubtedly been  misinterpreted  and  misused.  Any  edu- 
cational device  would  incur  the  same  condemnation 
if  it  were  used  to  produce  beliefs  or  conduct  which  merited 
disapproval.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  history-teaching 
in  our  schools  were  used  to  make  our  children  hate  the 
Republic  and  the  principle  of  democracy,  and  eager 
to  work  for  the  abolition  of  representative  government 
and  the  establishment  of  absolute  monarchy  among  us. 
It  is  palpable  that  the  fault  would  lie  not  with  the  use, 
but  with  the  abuse  of  history- teaching;  and  the  remedy 
would  not  be  the  excision  of  history  from  the  curriculum. 
Such  a  remedy  would  be  at  least  as  bad  as  the  disease. 

Exactly  so  is  it  in  regard  to  the  use  of  such  devices  as 
characterize  the  Roman  Church,  and  other  "ritualistic" 
bodies.  There  is  nothing  magical  or  miraculous  in  any 
of  these  devices.  If  they  produce  bad  effects  upon  mind 
and  character  (and  in  some  cases  they  undoubtedly  do), 
this  is  because  they  are  misinterpreted  and  directed  to 
wrong  ends.  Now  the  very  fact  that  an  educational 
device  is  powerful  for  evil  when  misdirected  constitutes 
a  strong  presumption  that  it  would  be  as  powerful  for 
good  if  rightly  understood  and  used  for  a  legitimate 
end. 

2.  The  other  peculiarly  modern  reason  for  the  relative 
inefficiency  of  the  Church,  to  which  I  have  alluded,  is 


38  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

the  fact  that,  owing  to  various  causes,  the  ministry  of 
all  denominations  is  being  recruited  from  men  of  inferior 
mental  calibre  and  force  of  personality.  Of  course  there 
are  exceptions;  equally  of  course,  any  clerical  gentleman 
who  reads  this  will  distinctly  understand  that  I  place 
him  in  the  class  of  exceptions.  My  statement  is  in 
general  true,  I  believe,  in  all  the  Western  nations,  but 
peculiarly  so  in  our  own  country.  We  have  only  to 
glance  back  two  or  three  generations  to  come  upon  a 
time  when  the  very  ablest  men  the  country  produced 
were  attracted  to  the  service  of  religion.  The  names 
of  Phillips  Brooks,  of  Beecher,  of  Parker,  Channing, 
Emerson,  and  many  others,  will  rush  into  every  reader's 
memory.  Certainly  in  Puritan  New  England  not  all 
the  clergy  were  men  of  first-class  ability;  but  the  rule 
was  that  the  preacher  had  a  distinct  vocation  for  his 
task,  and  was  in  general  superior  in  education  and  in 
power  of  leadership  to  the  majority  of  his  congregation. 
To-day,  unfortunately,  this  rule  no  longer  holds. 

For  such  a  state  of  affairs  there  are  three  main  causes. 
First  comes  the  fact  that,  whereas  formerly  the  preacher 
had  had  greater  educational  opportunities  than  most  of 
his  congregation,  to-day  he  has  seldom  had  more  and 
frequently  less  of  such  opportunities  than  they.  Sec- 
ondly, the  rewards  offered  to  the  preacher,  in  the  shape 
not  only  of  pecuniary  emolument,  but  also  of  prestige 
and  social  estimation,  are  insignificant  as  compared  with 
those  offered  by  a  moderately  successful  business  career. 

Now  the  hypnotizing  idolatry  of  wealth  and  extrava- 
gance infects  us  all  to-day.  None  of  us  is  entirely  proof 
against  the  seduction  of  the  course  described  in  the 
cynical  words,  "Get  on,  get  honour,  get  honest."  We 
have  all  to  some  extent  imbibed  the  deadly  ethical  heresy 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  39 

which  is  the  corollary  of  materialistic  economics,  that 
honesty,  and  indeed  all  the  other  spiritual  graces,  are 
possible  only  as  luxurious  appendages  to  a  wealthy 
life.  Poverty  is  regarded  as  excluding  the  possibility  of 
virtues  and  spiritual  graces,  and  we  actually  tolerate 
and  act  upon  the  blasphemous  assumption  that  a  poor 
man  cannot  afford  to  be  honest. 

It  is  this  moral  disease,  engendered  by  and  reacting 
upon  the  enormous  prosperity  which  the  rapid  develop- 
ment of  the  country's  resources  has  produced,  which 
leads  public  opinion  to  look  almost  contemptuously 
upon  the  man  who  does  not  gravitate  unresistingly  to- 
wards the  corner  in  life  where  the  showers  of  gold  will 
fall  most  richly  upon  him.  In  two  recent  novels — Mr. 
Tarkington's  The  Turmoil  and  Mr.  Winston  Churchill's 
A  Far  Country — we  have  over-true  pictures  of  the  way 
in  which  elect  souls  are  dragged  or  seduced  into  the 
service  of  "the  Brute."  Let  us  frankly  face  the  fact 
that  this  thing  is  happening  daily  in  a  thousand  pros- 
perous homes.  The  American  nature  is  not  at  bottom 
philistine  and  materialistic;  it  really  has  an  enormous 
regard,  even  a  superstitious  reverence,  for  culture.  But 
being,  unfortunately,  at  the  stage  in  which  they  know 
"the  price  of  everything  and  the  value  of  nothing," 
many  people  accept  the  delusion  that  culture  is  a  thing 
that  can  be  bought.  It  is  assumed  to  consist  in  hav- 
ing the  best-bound  books  in  the  handsomest  book- 
cases, and  the  most  expensive  pictures  on  the  most 
magnificent  walls.  Hence  follows  the  belief  that  the 
ideal  state  of  man  is  that  in  which  he  is  able  to  give 
the  highest  price  for  the  rarest  object  of  art.  We  have 
not  attained  the  stage  of  civilization  (reached  twenty- 
four  centuries  ago  in  Greece)  in  which  it  is  felt  that  great 


40  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

wealth  is  a  disgrace,  a  thing  to  be  kept  secret  if  possible, 
or  apologized  for  if  it  becomes  publicly  known.  Ac- 
cordingly, among  other  disastrous  consequences,  it  comes 
about  that  the  ablest  men — those  who  might  by  a  life  of 
consecration  produce  the  fine  fruits  of  genius  in  art  and 
literature — accept,  instead  of  these  high  possibilities, 
the  lower  certainties  of  business,  and  take  upon  them- 
selves the  yoke  of  the  machine.  This  is  the  chief  cause 
for  the  relative  inferiority  of  our  present-day  ministers 
of  religion  to  their  professional  predecessors  and  their 
lay  contemporaries. 

The  third  cause  of  this  state  of  things  is  one  already 
hinted  at  in  my  remarks  about  the  creeds.  Men  of  keen 
intellectual  integrity  are  unwilling  to  use  even  liturgical 
language,  so  long  as  this  is  assumed  to  be  the  exact  and 
scientific  expression  of  their  inmost  personal  convictions, 
when  it  is  not  so  in  fact.  The  Church  must  place  a  dif- 
ferent construction  upon  its  creeds.  It  must  either 
modify  their  language  or  make  their  use  optional,  and 
have  it  distinctly  understood  that  they  stand  merely 
as  historical  monuments,  and  not  as  adequate  expres- 
sions of  the  belief  of  men  to-day.  Otherwise  they  will 
remain  what  they  are  now,  a  stumbling-block  in  the 
path  of  the  most  desirable  recruits  to  the  service  of  the 
Church. 

Lest  my  criticism  seem  too  severe,  I  would  point  out 
that  the  clerical  profession  does  not  stand  alone  in  its 
present  defects.  It  is  suffering  from  the  inevitable 
results  of  forces  which  have  led  to  a  similar  deterioration 
in  our  political  life.  The  radical  trouble  in  the  latter 
department  is  that  it  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  a 
refuge  for  the  relatively  incompetent  and  for  the  more 
or  less  unscrupulous.  This  cannot  be  cured,  any  more 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  41 

than  can  the  difficulty  in  regard  to  religion,  without  a 
fundamental  change  in  our  general  point  of  view.  We 
must  return  to  the  idea  of  noblesse  oblige  as  a  principle 
of  action,  and  as  a  motive  that  should  determine  young 
men  in  their  choice  of  a  career.  We  must  again  learn 
to  see  the  real  values  of  life  as  other  than  material, 
and  inexpressible  in  terms  of  money.  Only  so  shall  we 
attract  to  the  high  and  noble  tasks  of  statesmanship  and 
of  spiritual  leadership  the  finest  types  of  character  that 
our  community  can  produce. 

To  sum  up:  The  Church  has  not  collapsed.  It  is  to 
be  hoped  that  it  will  not  collapse.  But  in  order  that  it 
may  achieve  the  full  efficiency  desirable  for  it  in  the 
interests  of  mankind  at  large,  it  must  adopt  the  follow- 
ing radical  principles  of  reform: — 

1.  Re-interpretation  of  its  function  as  educator,  edifier 
and  unifier  of  the  nation. 

2.  Whole-hearted  acceptance  of  the  principle  of  free- 
dom of  thought  for  clergy  and  laity,  and  of  the  provi- 
sional and  instrumental  nature  of  doctrine. 

3.  Recognition  of  the  nation  as  the  true  Church, — 
i.  e.,  as  the  real  sphere  of  psychic  life  and  character- 
building  force,  by  which  all  individuals  and  groups  within 
it  are  mainly  influenced,  and  of  local  Churches  as  chan- 
nels by  which  the  spiritual  resources  of  the  nation  are 
mediated  to  the  individual.1 

4.  New  experiments,  under  scientific  test  conditions, 
must  be  conducted  in  the  use  of  liturgies,  rituals,  etc.; 
and  anything  in  the  traditional  forms  which  does  not 
make  for  mental  and  moral  edification  must  be  given  up. 

5.  All  activities  of  an  institutional  or  social  order  which 
are  irrelevant  to  or  incompatible  with  the  Church's 

1  See  below,  chap.  viii. 


42  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

special  function,  must  be  handed  over  to  separate  and 
specialized  organizations. 

6.  First-rate  men  must  again  be  attracted  to  the 
ministry,  by  the  raising  of  the  standard  of  admission, 
the  restoration  of  perfect  self-respect  to  the  clergy 
through  the  relaxation  of  dogmatic  tests  and  formulas, 
and  by  assuring  to  the  clergy  an  adequate  and  dignified 
maintenance  and  the  opportunity  of  real  leadership  in 
their  communities. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  RE -INTERPRETATION   OF  GOD 

THE  foregoing  chapters  have  perhaps  sufficiently  indi- 
cated what  the  title  of  this  volume  is  intended  to  con- 
vey,— that  the  present  inquiry  is  to  be  confined  almost 
exclusively  to  the  psychological  and  sociological  aspects 
of  religion.  It  is  my  conviction  that  practical  agreement 
is  less  impossible  as  the  outcome  of  an  investigation  of 
these  sides  of  the  subject,  than  upon  the  basis  of  theo- 
logical or  metaphysical  study. 

But,  before  proceeding  to  consider  the  idea  of  God  as 
a  force  in  human  life,  I  wish  if  possible  to  make  it  un- 
mistakably clear  that  the  limiting  of  attention  to  the 
immediately  verifiable  side  of  religion  involves  no  denial 
of  its  transcendental  aspects.  Nor  am  I  concerned  to 
dispute  that  some  of  the  transcendental  doctrines  con- 
cerning God  may  be  necessarily  implied  in  and  deducible 
from  actual  events  of  experience.  The  limitation  of  the 
present  inquiry,  however,  to  facts  of  history  and  of 
personal  and  social  life,  is  justified  both  by  the  necessity 
of  keeping  this  book  within  manageable  limits,  and 
also  by  the  hope  that  on  this  side  lies  the  best  chance 
of  finding  common  ground. 

Belief  in  God  has  been  and  is  a  tremendous  motive 
force  in  conduct.  It  would,  moreover,  be  paradoxical 
to  maintain  that  there  is  no  objective  reality  corre- 
sponding to  that  belief,  and  that  the  millions  who  have 
been  energized  and  guided  in  their  conduct  by  the 

43 


44  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

power  which  they  called  God  were  victims  of  a  mere 
illusion.  They  did  unquestionably  have  their  experi- 
ence,— an  experience  for  which,  as  history  shows,  any 
number  of  explanatory  theories  may  be  framed.  It 
may  prove  possible,  by  limiting  attention  to  the  ex- 
perience itself,  and  prescinding  from  theological  specula- 
tions, to  arrive  at  a  common  understanding  which  shall 
be  valid  and  indisputable  so  far  as  it  goes,  though  leav- 
ing open  many  questions  as  to  the  remoter  implications 
of  the  facts  investigated. 

i.  RECENT  DEVELOPMENTS. — The  period  which  has 
elapsed  since  the  Protestant  Reformation  has  been 
marked  by  great  activity  in  the  field  of  religious  thought. 
In  the  course  of  that  development,  Protestantism  has 
gradually  arrived  at  the  solution  of  a  fundamental  in- 
consistency in  the  case  which  it  presented  to  the  world 
in  the  sixteenth  century.  One  may  say  broadly  that 
the  reformed  bodies  originally  set  out  with  two  mutually 
destructive  principles,  and  that  the  subsequent  course 
of  events  has  been  a  struggle  for  supremacy  between 
these.  Protestantism  appealed  from  the  authority  of 
Church  and  priest  to  that  of  the  individual  conscience. 
Unless  the  authority  of  direct  personal  experience  could 
be  validated,  there  was  no  basis  for  its  rejection  of  the 
collective  authority  of  the  historic  custodian  of  the 
faith.  Yet,  at  the  same  time,  Protestantism  set  up  the 
final  and  infallible  authority  of  the  letter  of  the  Bible 
as  constituting  its  own  court  of  appeal  from  the  doc- 
trinal and  ethical  corruptions  of  the  Papacy.  Just  as 
the  monastic  orders  had  given  a  blind  and  superstitious 
deference  to  the  received  text  of  the  Vulgate  (against 
which  Erasmus  waged  a  memorable  fight),  so  in  the 
next  century, — against  the  example  and  practice  of 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  45 

Luther,  and  even  of  Calvin, — the  Protestant  societies 
developed  a  superstitious  deference  for  the  letter  of  their 
vernacular  translations.  In  the  case  of  the  English, 
this  became  (what  it  remains  in  some  instances  to  this 
day)  a  conviction  of  the  direct  divine  inspiration,  the 
finality  and  infallibility  of  the  King  James  Version 
of  1611. 

The  idea  of  the  infallibility  of  any  book,  being  by 
the  nature  of  things  incompatible  with  the  supremacy  of 
conscience,  could  not  fail  to  lead  to  self-contradiction. 
The  real  controversy,  then,  of  Protestant  against  Roman- 
ist was  not  as  to  reason  versus  authority,  but  as  to 
the  seat  and  nature  of  the  ultimate  authority  in  reli- 
gion. Both  affirmed  that  there  was  a  court  of  appeal 
external  to  and  rightfully  despotic  over  the  reason  and 
conscience  of  the  individual.  As  against  the  despotism 
of  the  living  Church,  Protestantism  in  its  degenerate 
form  asserted  the  despotism  of  the  letter  of  the  Bible — 
as  construed  by  the  groups  into  which  it  organized  itself. 
How  speedily  the  new  creed  degenerated  in  this  fashion 
can  be  seen  by  a  study  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  the 
classical  treatise  of  Richard  Hooker  against  the  Puritans. 
Before  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Hooker  found  it 
necessary  to  point  out  to  them  that,  since  scripture  itself 
could  not  guarantee  the  authority  of  scripture,  their  posi- 
tion rested  upon  a  circular  argument  which  reduced  it  to 
absurdity. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Catholic  position  at  bottom 
involves  an  appeal  to  individual  private  judgment  no 
less  vital  than  that  made  by  Protestantism.  The  claim 
of  a  living  historical  and  collective  authority  to  un- 
conditional obedience  cannot  be  so  presented  as  to  be 
self-evident.  If  a  child  born  under  Catholic  influence 


46  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

remains  loyal  to  the  Church  in  his  mature  life  only  be- 
cause of  the  pressure  of  habit  and  the  absence  of  thought, 
his  allegiance  is  not  a  thing  in  which  the  heads  of  his 
Church  can  take  any  rational  satisfaction.  Or  if  the 
claim  of  the  Catholic  Church  is  presented  to  an  outsider, 
he  cannot  become  convinced  of  its  validity  without  the 
exercise  of  a  long  and  exceedingly  complicated  process 
of  private  judgment.  It  was  such  a  process,  lasting  from 
1833,  or  earlier,  to  1845,  which  preceded  and  caused  the 
submission  of  Newman  to  the  Church  of  Rome.  Hence 
it  is  somewhat  of  a  misunderstanding  to  state  the  dif- 
ference between  Catholicism  and  Protestantism  as 
consisting  in  the  opposition  between  authority  and 
private  judgment.  On  the  one  hand,  as  we  have  seen, 
Protestantism  affirms  an  infallible  authority;  on  the 
other,  Catholicism  cannot  escape  from  appealing  to 
individual  reason.  Ultimately,  therefore,  both  these 
systems  of  thought  must  rest  upon  the  basis  of  personal 
spiritual  experience.  Except  in  so  far  as  their  claim 
can  be  justified  by  an  analysis  of  such  experience,  it 
must  fail. 

Although  the  present-day  situation  in  religion,  as  it 
affects  us  here  in  America,  offers  vital  problems  to  the 
Catholic  as  well  as  to  the  Protestant,  yet  the  historic 
development  which  led  up  to  it  was  chiefly  a  matter  of 
the  working  out  of  the  latent  implications  of  Protestant- 
ism. The  nineteenth  century  witnessed  a  religious  ex- 
plosion; but  the  bomb  which  exploded  had  been  set  in 
the  sixteenth,  and  it  had  taken  three  hundred  years  for 
the  fuse  to  burn  through. 

It  became  apparent  in  the  nineteenth  century  that  an 
infallible  book  constitutes  a  worse  fetter  upon  the  human 
mind  than  an  infallible  living  voice.  No  set  of  men  can 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  47 

remain  altogether  impervious  to  the  currents  of  thought 
flowing  around  them.  However  slowly  they  move,  move 
they  must.  The  "Still  it  moves"  of  Galileo  applies  to 
the  Church  as  well  as  to  the  earth.  Not  only  the  doctrine 
and  philosophy,  but  even  the  practical  attitude  of  the 
Church  towards  many  secular  interests  has  changed  re- 
peatedly in  the  course  of  history.  But  once  the  text  of 
a  book  has  been  fixed,  and  infallibility  ascribed  to  it,  the 
possibility  of  progress  is  virtually  eliminated.  Hence  the 
stark  opposition  and  acute  friction  between  the  move- 
ment of  science  in  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  old- 
fashioned  theology.  Hence,  too,  the  fact  that  this  op- 
position was  overcome  only  by  the  unqualified  surrender 
of  the  doctrine  of  Biblical  inerrancy. 

But  the  so-called  conflict  between  religion  and  science 
in  the  nineteenth  century  was  only  one  of  several  lines 
of  development  which  have  converged  in  the  religious 
situation  that  confronts  us  to-day.  Let  us  for  conven- 
ience enumerate  four  of  these:  (i)  The  advance  of  phys- 
ical knowledge,  culminating  in  the  evolutionistic  hy- 
pothesis, had  effects  far  beyond  the  mere  destruction  of 
the  notion  of  Biblical  infallibility.  (2)  The  latter  illusion 
was  also  attacked,  so  to  speak,  from  within,  through  the 
application  of  the  principles  of  literary  and  historical 
criticism  to  the  canon  and  text  of  the  Bible  itself.  (3) 
Idealistic  philosophy  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries  was  anti-traditional,  and  tended  more  and 
more  to  be  true  to  its  inherent  nature,  which,  from  the 
days  of  Plato  onwards,  has  involved  the  assertion  of  the 
supremacy  of  individual  reason  and  conscience  as  the 
judge  not  only  of  men  but  of  gods.  Kant  no  less  than 
Hume  is  a  destroyer  of  that  slavish  attitude  toward  ex- 
ternal authority  which  all  the  old  religious  doctrines 


48  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

imply.  (4)  The  advance  of  democracy  has  led  neces- 
sarily to  changes  in  fundamental  religious  thought,  since 
a  revolt  against  despotism  in  the  State  must  sooner  or 
later  involve  a  revolt  against  despotism  in  the  Church, 
and  against  the  conception  of  God  as  an  absolute 
monarch. 

I  shall  here  treat  only  of  three  of  the  four  lines  of  de- 
velopment above  enumerated,  omitting  the  question  of 
Biblical  criticism. 

It  now  seems  almost  incredible  that  there  ever  can 
have  been  any  difficulty  to  religious  minds  in  the  opposi- 
tion between  ascertained  facts  of  physical  science  and 
the  statements  of  the  Bible.  The  notion  of  the  infal- 
libility of  any  ancient  book  is  so  inherently  unworkable, 
and  seems  to  be  such  "lives  and  lives  behind  us,"  that 
we  find  it  difficult  to  realize  the  state  of  mind  of  those  to 
whom  it  was  a  reality.  It  is  no  unfairness  to  the  Hebrew 
scriptures  to  say  that,  from  the  point  of  view  of  science 
and  philosophy,  they  are  to  an  indefinite  extent  in- 
ferior not  only  to  modern  attainments,  but  to  the  attain- 
ments of  other  literatures  contemporary  with  them.  The 
works  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  while  in  some  ways  perhaps 
less  inspired  than  the  finest  parts  of  the  Old  Testament, 
are  throughout  on  a  level  of  philosophic  insight,  logical 
power,  and  scientific  grasp  of  reality  incomparably  higher 
than  anything  to  be  found  either  in  the  Old  Testament 
or  the  New.  Indeed,  the  only  philosophical  interpreta- 
tion of  Christian  doctrine  in  the  New  Testament — the 
Logos  theory  of  the  Fourth  Gospel — is  nothing  but  an 
adaptation  of  one  of  Plato's  fruitful  ideas. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  intellectual  development, 
it  has  been  a  misfortune  to  the  race  that  the  superstition 
of  infallibility  did  not  attach  itself  rather  to  the  Dia- 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  49 

logues  of  Plato  than  to  the  poetry,  prophecy  and  folk- 
lore of  the  ancient  Jews.  Of  the  two  evils  this  would 
certainly  have  been  the  less,  had  a  choice  been  possible. 
The  past,  however,  is  irrevocable;  and  we  can  only  look 
back  with  a  wonder  not  immingled  with  pity  at  the 
distress  caused  to  our  grandfathers  by  the  hopelessness 
of  their  attempts  to  square  the  revelation  of  their  own 
time  with  that  of  the  ancient  Hebrews.  The  whole 
confusion  arose  from  the  assumption  that  the  writers 
of  the  Bible  had  special  sources  of  knowledge  inacces- 
sible to  other  human  beings,  and  were  supernaturally 
guarded  against  errors  of  fact. 

From  the  standpoint  of  to-day  we  can  further  see  that 
the  conflict  of  the  nineteenth  century  involved  another 
delusion,  to  the  effect  that  evolution  rules  out  creation. 
This  delusion  seems  to  have  been  shared  by  many  of  the 
propagandists  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  as  it  certainly 
is  to  this  day  by  those  who  are  seeking  to  popularize 
that  doctrine  among  the  masses  as  the  foundation  of  a 
system  of  materialistic'philosophy.  The  Darwin-Spencer 
hypothesis,  as  we  may  call  it,  was  really  presupposed  in 
much  of  the  reasoning  of  scientific  men  long  before  it 
was  formulated.  It  is,  indeed,  an  inevitable  corollary 
of  the  principle  of  causality.  That  principle  can  only 
mean  that  the  forces  of  change  in  nature  are  inherent, 
and  consequently  that  the  present  state  of  the  universe 
is  explicable  in  terms  of  its  former  states. 

Now,  those  who  fought  the  battle  between  science 
and  theology  felt  that  if  this  principle  were  sound,  the 
notion  of  creation  must  necessarily  be  false.  For  many 
years  few  of  the  thinkers  whose  writings  were  sufficiently 
popular  to  enter  into  the  general  consciousness  seem  to 
have  detected  the  fallacy  of  this  antithesis.  The  most 


50  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

conspicuous  exception  that  occurs  to  one's  mind  at  the 
moment  is  John  Morley,  who,  in  his  essay  On  Com- 
promise, in  the  early  seventies,  sounded  a  much-needed 
warning  against  the  hypostatization  of  the  word  evolu- 
tion. It  is  unfortunate  that  he  did  not  greatly  expand 
his  pregnant  observation  that  "Evolution  is  not  a  force, 
but  a  process;  not  a  cause,  but  a  law."  To-day,  after 
forty  years,  it  is  still  necessary  to  insist  upon  this  truth, 
which,  when  fully  grasped,  is  sufficient  of  itself  to  an- 
nihilate the  philosophy  which  the  advocates  of  materi- 
alistic and  mechanical  determinism  are  spreading  among 
the  masses. 

What  do  we  mean  when  we  say  that  evolution  is  a 
law?  We  mean  that  it  is  a  description  of  observed 
uniformities  of  co-existence  and  sequence.  It  is  a  state- 
ment of  the  order  in  which  things  happen.  It  is  a  gen- 
eralization of  fact.  Any  specific  change  which  we  ob- 
serve is  due  to  some  force  or  other;  but  the  description 
of  the  process  of  change  as  evolution  throws  no  light 
upon  the  nature  of  the  forces  causing  change.  Now 
the  term  "creation"  necessarily  implies  a  force.  Crea- 
tion, if  it  happens,  is  a  cause;  evolution  is  not  a  cause. 
How,  then,  can  there  be  any  mutual  exclusion  here? 
How  can  we  speak  of  the  world-process  as  being  one 
either  of  creation  or  of  evolution?  It  is  perfectly  con- 
ceivable that  the  world  may  be  both  created  and  evolved, 
— that  the  process  descriptively  summed  up  as  evolu- 
tion may  be  a  process  of  creation.  I  do  not  affirm  that 
it  is  so;  my  point  is  merely  that  the  opposite  idea,  which 
lay  at  the  root  of  the  conflict  between  science  and  theo- 
logical orthodoxy,  is  a  fallacy,  which  a  very  small  effort 
of  careful  thought  suffices  to  dissipate. 

Another  of  those  almost  comical  superstitions  which 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  51 

seem  always  to  spring  up  in  the  train  of  any  attempt 
to  popularize  a  philosophic  or  scientific  doctrine,  is  the 
evolutionary  illusion  that  all  change  is  improvement. 
This  idea  still  haunts  many  minds.  An  imaginary 
picture  is  drawn  of  the  development  from  the  amoeba 
up  to  man,  and  under  that  picture  is  inscribed  the 
word  Progress,  with  a  capital  "P."  Mr.  Bertrand  Rus- 
sell, with  delightfully  acidulated  humour,  remarks  that 
"whether  the  amoeba  would  agree  with  this  is  not 
known."  But,  without  consulting  the  amoeba,  we  may 
point  out  that  the  evolutionary  superstition  involves 
an  optimistic  fatalism,  which  is  calculated  to  disarm 
the  moral  judgment  and  to  paralyze  the  energies  of  man. 
It  is  bad  enough  to  transform  evolution  from  a  process 
into  a  force,  but  it  is  far  worse  to  turn  the  force  into 
a  good  fairy,  and  then  to  affirm  guilelessly  that  this 
good  fairy,  which  has,  by  a  process  of  uninterrupted 
advance,  metamorphosed  the  ape  into  the  archbishop, 
may  be  trusted  to  continue  its  beneficent  activities  until 
it  transmutes  the  archbishop  into  the  archangel.  Prog- 
ress is  a  reality;  but  so  is  stagnation  and  so  is  retro- 
gression; and  any  belief  that  human  affairs  can  be  made 
better  except  through  ideals  and  through  unremitting 
determination  to  transform  those  ideals  into  actualities, 
is  a  superstition  which  must  speedily  bring  its  own  neme- 
sis upon  its  heels. 

Perhaps  the  most  noteworthy  defect  in  the  old- 
fashioned  evolutionist  argument  was  its  failure  to  ac- 
count for  variation.  At  this  point  it  was  highly  vul- 
nerable to  the  attack  of  those  who  held  the  doctrine  of 
teleology  in  any  form  whatever, — even  in  the  form  in 
which  it  was  held  by  Samuel  Butler.  It  is  all  very  well  to 
talk  of  the  struggle  for  existence  and  the  survival  of  the 


52  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

fittest,  but  the  cardinal  problem  is  that  of  the  origin 
of  the  fittest.  Natural  selection  cannot  begin  to  operate 
until  the  variations  upon  which  it  is  to  work  have  come 
into  being.  Before  there  can  be  a  struggle  for  existence 
the  struggler  must  exist;  and  it  therefore  seems  not 
quite  philosophical  to  describe  him  as  a  product  of  his 
own  struggle.  The  half-conscious  recognition  of  this 
weakness  of  the  evolutionary  position  is  betrayed  by 
the  use  of  such  a  phrase  as  "spontaneous  variations." 
This  phrase  must  either  mean  "variations  which  had  no 
cause  at  all"  (in  which  case  it  involves  the  abandonment 
of  the  very  possibility  of  science,  and  indeed  a  suicide 
of  thought),  or  else  it  must  mean  "variations  the  cause 
of  which  is  unknown."  But  this  is  a  singular  admission 
to  be  made  by  a  philosophy  which  is  triumphantly 
announcing  the  expulsion  of  all  mystery  from  the  world 
of  experience. 

There  seemed  only  one  way  in  which  the  difficulty 
could  be  got  over,  and  that  was  by  re-introducing,  in 
modified  form,  those  very  ideas  of  creation  and  design 
which  evolutionism  was  at  first  supposed  to  have  ren- 
dered superfluous.  Samuel  Butler's  theory  amounts  in 
effect  to  the  substitution  of  a  large  number  of  designers, 
each  with  a  limited  intelligence  and  each  indifferent  to  the 
plans  of  the  others,  for  the  one  designer  with  unlimited 
resources  which  old-fashioned  theology  had  postulated. 

In  our  own  day,  M.  Bergson  is  making  heroic  efforts  to 
establish  a  theory  which  retains  design  but  eliminates 
designers  altogether.  His  elan  vital,  which  explodes  from 
nowhere  and  with  no  obvious  cause,  proceeds  without  any 
intelligence  to  carry  out  a  work,  every  step  of  which,  as 
Bergson  traces  it,  would  seem  to  require  intelligence  of 
the  highest  conceivable  order.  The  curious  thing  about 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  53 

the  Bergsonian  elan  is  that  'its  handiwork  continues  to 
be  perfectly  intelligent,  until  it  produces  intelligence  in 
man.  Human  reason  is  the  only  thing,  apparently,  which 
interferes  with  its  rational  working.  Man's  mind  is  a 
sort  of  will-o'-the-wisp,  which  leads  us  astray  and  opens 
between  us  and  reality  a  gulf  impassable.  It  prisons  us 
up  amid  inveterate  errors.  It  raises  pseudo-problems, 
due  to  the  forcing  of  reality  into  a  conceptual  framework 
which  it  cannot  be  made  to  fit  without  being  denatured. 
It  substitutes  immobility  for  mobility,  and  unreal 
mathematical  time  (which  M.  Bergson's  Ithuriel-spear 
quickly  proves  to  be  only  a  transmogrified  kind  of  space) 
for  real  duration.  It  consequently  gives  us  a  world 
considerably  less  like  true  reality  than  the  moving 
shadows  cast  by  the  cinematograph  are  like  the  scenes 
and  acts  which  they  portray.  If  it  were  not  for  the 
intellect,  we  should  be  perfectly  capable  of  understanding 
the  perpetual  creation  of  living  forms.  It  is  logic  which 
makes  this  understanding  impossible,  because  it  is  of  the 
nature  of  logic  to  fetter  us  within  the  circle  of  the  given. 
By  a  bewilderingly  brilliant  process  of  reasoning,  M. 
Bergson  demonstrates  that  reasoning  is  not  to  be  trusted. 
We  have  to  fall  back  upon  intuition.  When  we  do  so,  we 
get  a  vision  of  reality  which  first  came  to  M.  Bergson  as  a 
result  of  his  intense  analytical  scrutiny  and  his  very 
effective  criticism  of  the  older  theories  of  evolution. 
It  is  the  negation  both  of  mechanism  and  of  finalism. 
Being  neither  creation  nor  evolution,  it  is  yet  both  at 
once.  This  reminds  one  of  the  extraordinary  sound 
emitted  on  a  memorable  occasion  by  Mr.  Weller  the 
Elder,  "which,  being  neither  a  groan  nor  a  grunt  nor  a 
gasp  nor  a  growl,  seemed  to  partake  in  some  degree  of 
the  character  of  all  four." 


54  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

All  of  which  is  by  no  means  intended  for  disparagement 
of  M.  Bergson  and  his  most  fascinating  and  valuable 
contribution  to  thought.  When  we  reach  the  point 
where  knowledge  fails,  we  have  frankly  to  choose  among 
myths — or,  as  they  are  more  politely  called,  hypotheses. 
This  was  done  of  old  consciously  by  Plato,  and  uncon- 
sciously by  the  founders  of  all  the  religions.  The  myth 
of  the  elan  vital  is  in  many  ways  preferable  to  that  of 
the  world-machine,  and  to  that  of  the  "magnified  and 
non-natural  man"  of  the  older  theology.  All  that  one 
need  insist  upon  is  that  the  framer  of  a  myth  shall  recog- 
nize it  for  what  it  is.  Let  him  say  with  Socrates,  "I 
do  not  mean  to  affirm  that  the  description  which  I  have 
given  of  the  soul  and  her  mansions  is  exactly  true — 
a  man  of  sense  should  hardly  say  that.  But  I  do  say 
that  .  .  .  something  of  the  kind  is  true."  What  we  need 
is  freedom  of  thought  and  fullness  of  thought,  and  the  up- 
rooting of  the  spirit  of  dogmatism.  The  old  creationism, 
the  later  evolutionism,  and  the  new  Bergsonian  blend, 
can  dwell  amicably  together  as  speculations,  and  as 
partial  expressions  of  the  effort  of  mankind  to  grapple 
with  a  mystery  which  it  cannot  solve.  There  is  design 
in  the  universe,  and  there  is  absence  of  design;  there 
are  progress  and  retrogression,  creation  and  destruction. 
The  essential  achievement  of  Bergson  is  his  demonstra- 
tion that  each  and  all  of  these  ideas  are,  in  Bacon's  phrase, 
inadequate  to  the  subtlety  of  nature. 

2.  PHILOSOPHICAL. — None  of  the  great  protagonists 
of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  was  a  materialist.  Whoever 
reads  the  writings  of  Spencer,  of  Huxley,  of  Darwin,  or 
of  Tyndall  will  see  how  much  profounder  is  their  teach- 
ing than  the  travesty  of  it  which  is  to  be  found  in  the 
works  of  most  of  the  popularizers.  But,  though  the 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  55 

great  protagonists  of  the  idea  were  not  materialists,  yet 
it  is  the  shallow  and  noisy  appropriators  of  their  doctrine 
who  alone  have  won  the  popular  ear;  and  the  evolution- 
ism of  the  man  in  the  street  is  a  materialistic  fairy-tale. 
Now  the  phenomenon  that  it  imports  us  here  to  notice 
is  that  the  popular  apologetic  of  religion  entirely  failed 
to  meet  it  on  this  ground,  because  popular  religion,  too, 
has  always  been  materialistic.  The  Old  Testament  it- 
self, despite  the  ethical  grandeur  of  many  of  its  parts, 
falls  under  this  condemnation.  Its  ideas  of  creation, 
of  God  and  the  angels,  and  of  the  spirit  of  man  are  quite 
primitive,  and  are  of  a  piece  with  that  child-like  an- 
thropomorphism of  the  Greek  populace,  which  is  gently 
chidden  in  the  Dialogues  of  Plato.  It  was  necessarily 
difficult  for  those  who  regarded  the'  Hebrew  folk-lore  as 
final  truth  to  rise  above  the  plane  of  materialism,  upon 
which  the  so-called  battle  between  science  and  religion 
was,  for  the  most  part,  fought  out. 

It  is  largely  due  to  the  prevalence  of  such  confusions 
of  thought  as  those  above  noted  that  the  ultimate  prob- 
lem at  issue  for  religion  is  still  almost  universally  for- 
mulated in  terms  of  the  question  whether  God  exists. 
The  true  problem,  as  we  shall  see,  relates  to  the  nature 
of  reality  as  experienced,  and  should  be  approached  by 
way  of  a  discrimination  between  the  category  real- 
unreal  and  that  of  existent-non-existent.  The  real  is  not 
conterminous  with  the  existent.  It  is  a  broader,  a  more 
inclusive  category.  There  is  no  paradox  in  the  assertion 
that  that  which  does  not  exist  may  be  more  real  than 
that  which  does.  Accordingly,  there  is  no  absurdity  in 
stating  that  even  if  God  does  not  exist,  he  may  neverthe- 
less be  very  real,  and  so  it  may  not  be  necessary  to  invent 
him.  Perchance,  as  Mr.  Zangwill  says,  "we  serve  God 


56  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

better,  deeming  He  is  not."  Be  it  observed  that  I  am 
begging  no  questions  here.  I  am  not  "denying  the 
existence  of  God."  There  is,  however,  this  intellectual 
difficulty  attaching  to  the  popular  idea  of  God's  exist- 
ence: that  it  either  reduces  God  to  the  level  of  the  finite, 
making  him  simply  a  unit  in  the  indefinite  multiplicity 
of  objects,  contra-distinguished  from  each  of  them  as 
they  are  from  each  other;  or  else  it  merges  him  with  the 
totality  of  existence  in  a  pantheism  which  is  practically 
indistinguishable  from  atheism. 

It  may  indeed  be  maintained  that  the  word  "  existence  " 
is  ambiguous,  seeing  that,  as  applied  to  spiritual  reality, 
it  means  something  quite  different  from  what  it  signifies 
when  applied  to  the  phenomenal,  the  spatial,  and  the 
sensible.  Since  this  is  true,  and  in  order  to  avoid  the 
confusion  between  the  two  meanings  of  the  term,  it  is 
better,  when  one  is  philosophizing,  to  use  it  only  in  the 
latter  sense,  as  applying  to  that  which  falls  within  space 
and  time.  If  the  idealists  are  right  in  saying  that  exist- 
ence means  the  possibility  of  being  perceived,  it  must 
follow  that  that  which  perceives,  but  is  itself  imper- 
ceptible, cannot  be  reduced  to  the  category  of  the  exist- 
ent. If  man  is  the  creator  of  time  and  space,  it  involves 
a  hysteron  proteron  to  trammel  him  within  the  limits 
of  his  own  creation.  Here  I  am  but  repeating  a  truth 
that  was  obvious  to  the  mind  of  Socrates,  who  chaffs 
Crito  for  asking  "How  shall  I  bury  you?"  immediately 
after  Crito  has  admitted  the  validity  of  arguments  tend- 
ing to  show  that  Socrates  was  neither  temporal  nor 
spatial,  and  consequently  could  not  be  buried.1 

We  may  express  the  argument  in  brief  by  saying  that 
existence  is  strictly  an  intellectual  category,  to  which 

1  Phaedo,  §  115. 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  57 

the  subject  is  irreducible.  Reality  then  becomes  the 
volitional  category,  upon  which  the  existent  is  condi- 
tional and  dependent.  It  is  true  that  even  a  bare  exist- 
ential judgment  involves  the  subject  together  with  the 
object  in  a  synthetic  unity,  but  the  affirmation  of  reality 
connotes  a  committal  of  the  will,  which  an  existential 
judgment  does  not. 

An  apology  is  perhaps  necessary  for  the  introduction 
of  these  considerations  into  a  treatise  which  is  frankly 
intended  for  popular  consumption,  and  does  not  pretend 
to  merit  or  appeal  for  the  attention  of  specialists  in 
metaphysics  or  theology.  I  could  not  justify  my  subse- 
quent arguments  to  the  philosophic  reader  without  offer- 
ing a  glimpse  at  the  groundwork  of  my  thought.  While 
the  lay  mind  is  unprepared  to  grasp  a  presentation  of 
the  difference  between  the  real  and  the  existent,  it 
has  grasped  the  truth  that  to  state  the  question  of 
God  in  terms  of  existence  annihilates  in  advance  the 
possibility  of  solving  it.  Whether  there  is  within  time 
and  space  an  instrumentality  through  which  functions 
the  individualized  self-consciousness  of  some  vastly  mag- 
nified man,  who  fabricated  the  world  of  things  and 
of  organisms,  is  a  question  which  no  foreseeable  exten- 
sion of  our  knowledge  could  enable  us  to  determine. 
We  may  say,  however,  that  if  God  is  in  this  sense  a 
person,  wholly  other  than  you  and  I,  but  functioning 
through  instruments  in  some  sense  analogous  to  your 
body  and  mine,  he  cannot  then  be  either  infinite  or 
omnipotent. 

But  the  study  of  this  aspect  of  popular  thought  sets 
us  upon  the  trail  of  the  psychological  basis  of  religion. 
The  philosophy  of  Christianity  presents  us  with  a  very 
different  God  from  that  to  which  its  popular  teaching, 


58  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

its  rituals  and  sacraments  point.  Whereas  the  orthodox 
metaphysic  postulates  an  infinite,  in  whom  the  eternal 
discord  between  good  and  evil  must  necessarily  be 
transcended  and  resolved,  yet  the  practical  working  of 
Christianity  points  to  a  finite  God — finite  because  per- 
sonal, and  because  identified,  not  with  the  totality  of 
existence,  but  exclusively  with  the  good.  The  first  of 
the  Thirty-Nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England  de- 
fines God  as  "the  Maker  and  Preserver  of  all  things 
both  visible  and  invisible."  Such  a  power  would  neces- 
sarily be  the  originator  and  sustainer  of  evil,  as  well  as 
of  good.  But  such  a  power  is  not  what  anybody  has 
ever  practically  meant  by  God.  It  is  merely  the  Spi- 
nozistic  natura  naturans;  and  most  people  really  agree 
with  John  Stuart  Mill  as  to  the  ab  urch'ty  of  applying 
ethical  predicates  to  nature.1 

It  is,  however,  in  the  realm  of  the  ritualistic  and  other 
practices  of  religion  that  we  should  look  for  its  psycho- 
logical explanation;  for  these  things  precede  the  elabora- 
tion of  systematic  theologies.  A  distinguished  meta- 
physician of  our  time  has  frankly  said  that  "  Metaphysics 
is  the  finding  of  bad  reasons  for  what  we  believe  upon 
instinct."  The  saying  is  most  true;  and  accordingly 
we  must  refer  to  the  instinct  if  we  wish  to  trace  the 
genesis  of  the  metaphysic.  Now  the  instinctive  expres- 
sion of  religious  faith  takes  the  form  of  prayer  to  a  man- 
like God,  and  of  the  practice  of  sacraments  by  which 
this  man-like  being  can  be,  in  a  sense,  coerced.  The 
Christian  metaphysic  declares  God  to  be  omnipresent; 
yet  the  Eucharist,  in  the  Catholic  view,  is  a  means  of 
forcing  him  to  become  present  at  a  particular  point  in 

1  See  the  most  luminous  and  closely-reasoned  essay  on  Nature  in 
Mill's  posthumous  volume  entitled  Three  Essays  on  Religion. 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  59 

space,  from  which,  in  the  very  terms  of  the  idea,  he  must 
otherwise  and  at  other  times  be  absent.  This  is  but 
one  of  a  hundred  self-contradictions,  the  logical  absurdity 
of  which  compels  the  conclusion  that  the  practices  are 
begotten  of  psychological  needs,  and  that  God  is  in- 
tended, as  Professor  Leuba  says,  not  to  be  understood, 
but  to  be  used. 

Let  us  then  refrain  from  posing  vain  questions  of  fact, 
which  from  inevitable  lack  of  data  are  inherently  in- 
soluble, and  let  us  see  whether  we  may  not  arrive  at 
more  profitable  results  if  we  inquire  into  the  nature  of 
reality  as  experienced.  I  may  point  out  in  passing  (with- 
out stopping  to  elaborate  its  implications)  the  fact  that 
such  an  inquiry  involves  a  dynamic  and  volitionalistic  phi- 
losophy as  against  a  static  and  intellectualistic  one.  For 
in  essence  the  question  "What  is  reality? "  means,  "What 
satisfies  the  organic  and  constitutional  will  of  man?" 

To  reduce  our  problem  to  its  very  simplest  terms,  let 
us  suppose  the  case  of  a  child  who  is  given  a  painted 
ball,  got  up  to  look  like  an  apple,  but  made  of  paste- 
board and  filled  with  dust  and  ashes.  If  the  child  bites 
it  and  then  says,  "This  is  not  a  real  apple,"  what  does 
he  mean?  He  means  that  the  phenomenon  is  not  such 
as  to  satisfy  the  desires  evoked  by  its  appearance;  and 
those  desires  are  the  expression  of  certain  needs  of  his 
nature  which  through  experience  he  has  learned  can  be 
satisfied  by  apples.  The  reality  of  the  genuine  apple 
consists  in  the  fact  that  it  meets  this  need.  The  painted 
imitation  exists  as  truly  as  the  real  apple.  For  the  in- 
tellect, the  one  phenomenon  has  every  whit  as  much  in- 
terest as  the  other.  But  it  is  the  will  which  rules,  above 
the  intellect,  in  the  field  of  the  real  and  the  valuable. 

Now  the  religious  craving  of  humanity  is  primarily  a 


60  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

craving  for  that  which  is  beyond  all  peradventure  real. 
Man  becomes  conscious  within  himself  of  spiritual  needs 
which  are  as  insistent  as  the  craving  of  the  body  for 
food  and  drink.  The  religious  need  is  the  need  for  per- 
fect righteousness,  for  inviolable  justice,  for  utter  purity 
in  oneself  and  in  others,  and  for  such  a  system  of  rela- 
tions among  all  rational  agents  as  shall  actualize  these 
qualities  and  thereby  satisfy  the  demand  of  the  soul. 
These  needs  are  but  partially  met  by  the  imperfect  world 
of  things  and  persons  in  which  we  live.  They  cannot  be 
explained,  any  more  than  self-conscious  rationality  can 
be  explained,  as  an  effect  or  product  of  the  time-and- 
space  process.  It  may  be  possible  to  account  for  the 
bodily  cravings  by  reference  to  the  make-up  of  the 
physical  organism, — though  at  bottom  it  would  be  fully 
as  rational  to  explain  the  organism  as  the  result  of  the 
cravings; — but  the  demands  of  the  spirit  for  ethical  and 
rational  satisfaction  can  never  be  accounted  for  by  any 
such  process  of  reduction  to  a  physical  basis.  These 
demands  transcend  all  the  suggestions  of  experience; 
and  the  more  experience  disillusionizes  us  as  to  the  pos- 
sibility of  meeting  them,  the  more  does  their  definiteness 
and  intensity  increase. 

In  Father  George  TyrrelPs  posthumously  published 
volume,  entitled  Christianity  at  the  Cross  Roads,  he  gives 
eloquent  expression  to  this  sad  yet  ennobling  sense  of 
the  insatiable  demand  made  upon  the  world  by  the 
deeps  of  our  nature.  He  declares  that  the  very  presence 
of  these  cravings  in  us  proclaims  our  affiliation  with  a 
transcendental  order  of  spiritual  reality.  He  compares 
the  spirit  of  man  to  the  beaver  in  captivity.  Like  the 
beaver,  man  " builds  his  dams  across  the  floor;  he  cannot 
tell  why.  Not  till  he  is  in  his  native  river  will  he  under- 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  6 1 

stand  his  restless  instinct;  and  the  river  is  beyond  all  his 
present  experience  and  imagination — a  missing  link  in 
his  mind."  1  These  pathetic  words  are  of  more  value 
as  a  revelation  of  the  personal  experience  of  Father 
Tyrrell  than  as  a  statement  of  religious  or  philosophical 
truth.  They  doubtless  contain  some  truth,  but  cer- 
tainly more  of  pessimistic  exaggeration.  The  truth  in 
them  is  that  we  are  conscious  of  needs  which,  being 
spiritual,  can  naturally  be  met  only  by  spiritual  means. 
The  exaggeration  is  the  suggestion  that  there  can  be  no 
satisfaction  for  these  needs  so  long  as  we  are  implicated 
in  the  world  of  time  and  space. 

That  world,  however,  is  in  its  very  nature  a  means  of 
communication  between  spirit  and  spirit.  Body  is  a 
vehicle,  not  an  obstacle;  a  window,  not  an  obscuring  wall. 
Every  man's  ethical  demand  upon  the  universe  is  con- 
tinually being  met  by  the  response  of  other  spirits  akin 
to  his  own,  functioning  through  those  very  instruments 
of  sense  which  sometimes  seem  like  barriers  and  obstacles. 
To  say  that  man  in  this  life  is  in  the  position  of  a  beaver, 
blindly  obeying  an  instinct  which  is  altogether  incon- 
gruous with  its  environment,  is  to  indict  the  world  as 
an  insane  conspiracy  against  reason  and  conscience. 
Nor  is  there  in  this  bitter  pessimism  any  trace  of  that 
Christian  philosophy  which  declares  the  phenomena  of 
the  sense-world  (including  the  human  body)  to  be  neces- 
sary and  pre-ordained  channels  for  the  communication 
of  spiritual  graces  from  soul  to  soul.  What  does  Incar- 
nation mean,  if  not  that  these  temporal  and  spatial 
thought-forms  are  indispensable  media  for  any  mani- 
festation of  the  divine? 

'Tyrrell,  Christianity  at  the  Cross-Roads,  chap,  xii,  §  a,  pp.  125-26. 
(London:  Longmans,  1913.) 


62  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

To  this  contention  Father  Tyrrell  might  conceivably 
have  assented.  But  he  would  have  proceeded  to  main- 
tain that  man's  craving  for  spiritual  reality  and  spiritual 
satisfaction  is  infinite,  and  consequently  is  inherently 
incapable  of  being  satisfied  under  finite  conditions. 
Such  is  the  drift  of  his  entire  argument.  Yet  this  is  a 
confusion  of  thought,  due  to  the  partial  survival  in 
Tyrrell  of  the  old  dogmatic  theology  and  scholastic 
philosophy.  He  has  mistaken  an  infinite  craving  for  a 
craving  for  the  infinite;  and  he  has  further  overlooked 
the  difference  between  the  satisfaction  of  such  a  craving 
and  its  extinction. 

To  take  a  very  homely  illustration:  a  person  suffering 
from  thirst  develops  a  longing  for  water  that  seems 
altogether  boundless.  This  infinite  craving,  however, 
is  not  a  craving  for  an  infinite  quantity  of  water.  It 
will  be  allayed  by  an  absurdly  finite  amount.  To  be 
sure,  it  will  subsequently  reawaken;  but  this  is  what  the 
sufferer  desires,  since  the  permanent  stilling  of  organic 
demands  is  the  very  definition  of  bodily  death.  To 
treat  thirst  as  a  craving  for  an  infinite  quantity  of  water 
would  be  to  seek  not  its  satisfaction  but  its  extinction; 
and  this  could  only  mean  death. 

Now,  while  all  physical  analogies  to  spiritual  truths 
are  necessarily  inadequate,  yet  they  are  the  only  ones 
at  our  command.  We  must  needs  use  them,  while  taking 
care  not  to  be  misled  by  them.  To  compare  the  needs 
of  the  soul  to  those  of  the  body,  as  the  psalmists  were 
wont  to  do,  is  not  absurd,  even  though  the  things  com- 
pared are  in  truth  incommensurable.  The  parallel  holds 
at  least  in  so  far,  that  the  seeming  infinity  of  a  craving  is 
no  index  to  the  magnitude  of  that  by  which  it  may  be 
allayed;  and  the  partial  and  transient  nature  of  the 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  63 

solace  available  is  an  indispensable  condition  of  the 
subsequent  revival  of  that  yearning  which  is  life  and 
creation.  TyrrelPs  demand,  not  for  the  satisfaction 
but  for  the  extinction  of  spiritual  needs,  implies  for  the 
soul  a  destiny  more  like  the  Nirvana  of  Buddhism  than 
the  Christian  City  of  God.  The  consciousness  of  needs 
that  can  be  slaked  to-day  only  to  reawaken  to-morrow 
with  more  insistent  demands  is  the  very  stuff,  the  very 
condition,  of  individuality.  Life  is  growth,  and  growth 
is  the  transcending  of  limitations,  the  surmounting  of 
obstacles, — only  to  be  challenged  anon  by  greater  ob- 
stacles and  more  formidable  limitations  in  its  progress. 
We  must  not  befool  ourselves,  through  the  old  rationalis- 
tic language  about  infinity  and  transcendence,  into  long- 
ing for  an  inundation  of  the  spirit  by  satisfactions  out  of 
measure,  under  which  the  very  life  of  the  soul  would  be 
submerged  and  lost.  My  need  of  God  is  a  need  for 
spiritual  goods  that  can  be  met  and  is  met  by  other 
spirits  finitely  conditioned  as  I  am.  It  is  a  need  for  a 
relation  of  perfect  mutuality,  perfect  equality,  perfect 
reciprocity  between  me  and  them.  It  is  the  yearning  for 
a  qualitative  perfection,  rather  than  a  quantitative  one. 
The  cup  of  cold  water  may  indeed  imply  an  unfailing 
fountain  as  its  source;  but  it  is  the  cup  that  I  need,  not 
the  inexhaustible  stream.  I  need  to  have  my  thirst 
slaked,  but  not  to  be  drowned.  I  wish  to  thirst  again, 
not  to  have  that  inward  incentive  to  creative  activity 
extinguished  for  ever. 

In  admitting  that  the  cup  of  water  may  imply  the 
reservoir,  we  have  perhaps  approached  as  nearly  as 
popular  language  and  homely  imagery  can  take  us  to 
the  truth  in  Tyrrell's  transcendentalism.  We  have  to 
stand  upon  the  ground  of  experience;  but  within  experi- 


64  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

ence  we  find  the  implication  of  a  reality  transcending  it. 
One  need  not  dispute  the  reasoning  that  the  rational 
and  ethical  nature  of  man,  as  manifested  amid  the 
limitations  of  the  space-and-time  sequences,  testifies  to 
a  universal  realm  of  mind  and  conscience  as  the  drop  of 
water  implies  the  ocean.  If  I  find  within  myself  qualities 
not  made  by  my  environment,  but  making  and  mould- 
ing it;  if  in  the  very  possibility  of  my  knowledge  and 
evaluation  of  the  sense-world  there  is  implied  that  which 
cannot  be  derived  from  the  sense- world:  then  I  must, 
by  the  principles  of  common  logic,  postulate  a  source 
analogous  in  nature  to  that  in  myself  which  is  thus 
transcendent.  Of  such  a  source,  no  less  can  be  said  than 
that  it  cannot  be  inferior  to  its  product.  Consciousness- 
in-general  is  not  entirely  unknowable.  In  so  far  as  we 
know  ourselves  we  may  know  it.  But  to  define  it  in 
terms  of  our  limitations  is  a  procedure  in  no  wise  war- 
ranted by  logic.  Yet  this  is  what  we  do  when  we  speak 
of  "the  personality  of  God,"  in  the  meaning  usually 
given  to  that  phrase. 

The  inveterate  anthropomorphism  of  religious  thought 
is  here  displayed  in  its  most  conspicuous  instance.  Men 
insist  in  the  same  breath  upon  ascribing  to  God  both 
personality  and  infinity;  and  they  are  unwilling  to  face 
the  difficulty  of  disentangling  these  incompatible  attri- 
butes. So  far  as  experience  goes,  personality  is  con- 
stituted by  its  limitations.  Finiteness  is  its  very  essence. 
I  am  I  because  I  am  not  you.  If  the  dam  of  otherness 
between  us  were  broken  through,  the  ensuing  unification 
would  involve  the  disappearance  both  of  your  person- 
ality and  mine.  Let  us  grant,  to  save  dispute,  that 
there  must  be  a  common  source  whence  each  of  us  draws 
the  identical  humanity  which  all  share.  It  is  incon- 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  65 

ceivable  that  such  a  source  could  contain  within  itself 
all  those  barriers  of  difference  and  otherness  which  make 
personality  possible.  There  may  be  in  the  undifferen- 
tiated  totality  of  "mind-stuff"  or  " consciousness-in- 
general"  something  which,  while  unimaginable  by  us, 
is  higher  and  greater  than  unitary  personality.  As 
Herbert  Spencer  remarked,  the  choice  may  be  not  be- 
tween personality  and  something  lower,  but  between 
personality  and  something  higher.1  But,  while  allowing 
for  this  possibility,  we  cannot  ascribe  individualized 
self-consciousness  to  the  infinite  without  intolerable  self- 
contradiction. 

We  are  as  men  wandering  in  the  dark  subterranean  pas- 
sages of  a  mine,  each  carrying  a  little  lamp,  upon  which, 
for  us,  everything  depends.  To  extinguish  it  is  death. 
Accordingly,  each  clings  to  his  lamp  with  anxious  in- 
tensity. Now,  because  we  are  always  in  the  mine  and 
have  no  conception  of  other  conditions,  we  inevitably 
envisage  all  other  possible  spiritual  life  as  similarly 
circumstanced.  God,  in  our  popular  theology,  is  simply 
a  bigger  man  groping  in  a  vaster  mine,  and  carrying  a 
lamp  which  indeed  throws  its  beams  farther  ahead,  but 
is  of  the  same  type  and  construction  as  ours.  That 
lamp  is  personality,  individualized  self-consciousness. 
May  it  not  be  that  such  personality  on  the  plane  of 
extra-spatial  and  super-temporal  being  would  be  as 
superfluous  and  irrelevant  as  the  miner's  lamp  in  the 
sunshine? 

Yet  the  clinging  of  the  religious  spirit  to  the  notion  of 
personality  may  find  elsewhere  its  justification.  To 
the  miner  the  lamp  is  truly  all-important;  and  to  us  the 
preservation  of  self-conscious  individuality  is  the  in- 

1  First  Principles,  Part  I,  chap,  v,  §  31,  par.  3. 


66  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

dispensable  condition  of  all  spiritual  achievement.  The 
religious  problem  is  a  problem  of  the  adjustment  of 
relations  among  finite  beings,  whose  separateness  and 
difference  are  as  marked  and  real  as  their  identity. 
Our  task  is  to  superimpose  an  order  of  ethical  relations 
upon  the  natural  world  of  non-moral  strifes  and  blind 
egotisms.  Our  perfection  consists  ideally  in  such  an  order 
as  shall  enable  each  to  develop  what  is  best  in  all,  and 
thereby  incidentally  to  bring  out  what  is  finest  in  him- 
self. A  man  is  not  true  to  himself  unless  he  does  his  best; 
but  what  can  that  best  be  except  that  which  produces 
the  best  qualitative  effect  upon  the  character  of  others? 

I  must,  then,  revere  my  neighbour  not  as  a  reproduc- 
tion of  myself,  but  precisely  in  his  uniqueness,  in  his 
otherness  and  difference  from  myself.  I  must  not  patron- 
ize him  by  treating  him  as  though  he  were  I.  He  is  a 
unique  and  unprecedented  synthesis  of  the  universal  ele- 
ments of  conscious  rationality  and  volition.  He  is  an  in- 
duplicable  original,  a  medal  of  which  the  die  is  lost.  The 
religious  problem  (which  is  also  the  social  problem)  is 
the  establishment  of  an  order  of  relations  among  all 
rational  creatures  which  shall  provide  scope  for  the 
actualization  of  all  the  latent  possibilities  of  good  in 
each,  with  a  view  to  that  perfection  which  can  consist 
only  in  their  harmonization. 

The  difference  between  this  view  and  that  of  individ- 
ualism or  anarchism  consists  in  its  recognition  of  the 
interconnection  and  interaction  between  all  lives,  and 
of  the  fact  that  individual  perfection  is  the  establish- 
ment of  right  relations  between  oneself  and  others. 
The  sacredness  of  the  individual,  and  of  those  limitations 
which  constitute  his  individuality,  consists  in  his  power 
of  entering  into  these  relations.  Because  he  and  his 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  67 

contribution  are  unique,  he  is  indispensable  to  the  per- 
fection of  the  spiritual  order,  since  perfection  is  by  its 
very  definition  unrealizable  unless  it  be  complete.  The 
absence  of  one  star  destroys  the  constellation.  The 
moral  ideal,  which  is  God,  is  the  integrated  harmony  of 
all  the  potentialities  of  good  in  every  actual  and  pos- 
sible rational  agent.  Into  this  conception  there  enter, 
as  indispensable  elements,  both  the  completeness  of  the 
series  and  the  uniqueness  of  each  of  its  terms;  so  that 
again  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  the  impossi- 
bility of  thinking  of  God  as  a  single  personality,  but  also 
with  the  impossibility  of  eliminating  the  concept  of  per- 
sonality from  the  idea  of  deity. 

The  common  conception  of  God  regards  him  as  an 
already  realized  perfection,  and  declares  that  man  is 
made  in  his  image.  Such  a  view,  however,  renders  man 
superfluous:  there  can  be  no  addition  to  perfection.  If  it 
be  already  achieved  in  God,  what  need  can  there  be  for 
images,  reproducing  by  piecemeal  fragmentary  glim- 
merings of  the  already  perfect,  under  conditions  involving 
its  violation  and  degradation?  What  could  be  more 
discouraging  to  man  in  his  pathetic  strivings  after  hard- 
won  good  than  the  thought  that  his  effort  adds  nothing 
to  the  essential  achievement  of  the  world?  On  the  other 
hand,  what  thought  is  more  ennobling  than  the  sense 
that  I,  with  my  poor  effort,  my  aspiration  and  failure  and 
renewed  striving,  am  indispensable  to  the  ideal  perfec- 
tion,— that  without  my  contribution  it  cannot  be,  and 
therefore  that  God  needs  me  as  truly  as  I  need  him? 
Upon  what  other  ground  can  we  justify  our  concern 
for  the  redemption  of  human  beings  from  inhuman 
conditions,  except  by  seeing  the  truth  that  each  most 
wretched  pauper  and  most  befouled  criminal  has  in  him 


68  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

some  element  of  spiritual  uniqueness,  without  the  realiza- 
tion of  which  the  divine  perfection  is  incomplete,  and 
therefore  imperfect,  and  therefore  non-existent? 

It  is  easy  to  see,  when  we  turn  to  the  fields  of  history 
and  psychology,  that  the  actual  religious  interest  of 
humanity  has  always  been  in  the  establishment  among 
men  of  such  relations  as  I  have  hinted  at.  Men  have 
used  the  term  God  to  denote  any  source  of  power  by 
which  their  insatiable  need  for  just  relations  could  in  any 
degree  be  met.  Matthew  Arnold  said  that  the  word  God 
has  practically  meant  "the  best  one  knows."  It  would, 
I  think,  be  truer  to  say  that  God  means  "the  best  one 
can  desire."  This  transfers  the  problem  to  the  region  of 
the  will,  and  allows  for  the  fact  that  desire  perpetually 
outruns  knowledge.  We  yearn  for  what  is  good  before  we 
know  it;  we  desire  the  universal  prevalence  of  a  good 
which  transcends  all  our  possible  knowledge. 

In  the  light  of  what  has  now  been  said,  the  distinction 
I  before  tried  to  make  between  reality  and  existence  may 
have  grown  clearer.  The  thing  which  any  man  desires 
so  deeply  that  it  acts  as  the  magnet  to  his  will,  drawing 
his  whole  being  into  devotion  to  itself,  is  the  supreme 
reality  of  his  life.  This  truth  is  illustrated  on  every 
plane,  the  lowest  as  well  as  the  highest.  In  commerce, 
men  become  absorbed  in  the  pursuit  of  wealth  which  does 
not  exist,  but  which  for  that  very  reason  is  to  them  more 
real  than  that  which  does  exist.  If  the  provisional 
definition  of  reality,  as  that  which  satisfies  the  will,  be 
accepted,  we  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  seeing  that  an 
ideal  is  the  most  real  of  all  realities,  because  it  is  that 
which  decides  the  fate  of  everything  that  merely  exists. 
Ideals  build  up  and  destroy  States  and  Churches.  They 
determine  the  modifications  effected  by  men  even  in  the 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  69 

physical  configuration  of  the  earth.  They  preside  over 
the  issues  of  life  and  death.  In  the  clash  between  what 
is  and  what  is  desired  consists  the  process  and  the  prog- 
ress of  creation.  The  will  to  seek  the  good  is  God's  effort 
at  self-realization.  That  desire  transcending  knowledge, 
demanding  and  creating  the  impossible,  removing  moun- 
tains and  exalting  valleys,  wringing,  as  George  Eliot 
said,  "a  human  music  from  the  indifferent  air," — that 
desire  is  God. 

But  God  is  more  than  the  desire.  He  is  also  whatever 
in  any  measure  satisfies  it.  This  truth  is  the  only  clue 
that  can  guide  us  through  the  labyrinth  of  religious  be- 
liefs which  we  find  in  history.  So  far  as  the  contents  of 
intellectualist  doctrines  are  concerned,  there  is  no  com- 
mon denominator  to  which  the  gods  can  be  reduced.  If 
the  fetish  of  the  African  savage,  the  Chinese  joss,  the 
popular  deities  of  Greece  and  the  purified  God  of  Socrates 
and  Plato,  the  old  Germanic  deities  and  the  Father  of 
Jesus  Christ — if  all  these  are  gods,  it  must  be  in  virtue 
of  their  common  function  and  of  the  common  relation 
in  which  men  have  stood  toward  them.  It  cannot  be  in 
virtue  of  any  objective  quality  common  to  all  the  gods, 
for  there  is  none.  The  kaleidoscope  of  the  history  of 
religion  becomes  a  picture  only  when  we  define  the  gods, 
in  Aristotelian  fashion,  in  terms  of  their  function.  They 
are  all  conceived  as  centres  of  power  which  can  be  drawn 
upon,  and  as  sources  of  such  blessings  as  to  their  wor- 
shippers seem  the  highest  that  life  can  offer.  Religion  is 
in  practice  the  attempt  to  secure  the  favour  and  the 
active  help  of  the  sources  of  blessing  by  concentrating 
steadfast  and  reverent  attention  upon  them. 

The  type  of  behaviour  of  all  men  towards  their  gods  is 
the  same  as  that  which  they  observe  towards  fellow  men 


70  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

and  animals.1  Professor  Leuba  has  grasped  and  worked 
out  the  implications  of  the  fact  that  "the  reason  for 
the  existence  of  religion  is  not  the  objective  truth  of  its 
conceptions,  but  its  biological  value."  2  It  is  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  the  kind  of  behaviour  by  which  men 
seek  to  control  the  non-living  world,  and  from  the 
magical  practices  by  which  extra-human  agencies  are 
assumed  to  be  coerced.  No  doubt  there  is  much  of 
magic  interblended  with  the  specifically  religious  type  of 
behaviour,  but  the  distinction  is  always  clear. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  the  beneficial,  or  supposedly 
beneficial,  results  of  religious  practices  are  not  dependent 
upon  the  objective  truth  of  the  doctrines  held  by  those 
who  perform  them.  Otherwise  it  would  be  impossible 
for  the  same  results  to  be  secured  by  men  of  radically 
different  theological  belief.  But  it  would  also  be  im- 
possible for  any  results  at  all  to  be  reached  if  this  type  of 
behaviour  did  not  bring  men  into  rapport  with  some 
reality.  If  in  literal  strictness  man  had,  as  Tennyson 
said,  "rolled  the  psalm  to  wintry  skies,  and  built  him 
fanes  of  fruitless  prayer,"  the  whole  of  religion  would  be 
nothing  but  a  form  of  insanity,  and  no  results  in  the 
strengthening  of  the  will,  in  the  deepening  of  moral 
purpose  and  the  clarification  of  spiritual  vision,  could 
ensue  from  it.  The  reality  invoked  may  be  quite  differ- 
ent in  nature  from  what  men  have  supposed  it,  just  as 

1  This  is  pointed  out  by  Professor  J.  H.  Leuba  in  the  opening  chapter 
of  his  valuable  book,  entitled  A  Psychological  Study  of  Religion.  (New 
York:  Macmillan,  1912.) 

2 1  deprecate  the  use,  in  this  otherwise  excellent  formula,  of  the  term 
biological.  If  Professor  Leuba  had  said  life-enhancing,  or  any  other  term 
denoting  the  fact  that  the  purpose  of  religion  is  not  merely  the  static 
maintenance  of  life  but  the  transcending  of  actually  realized  conditions, 
he  would  have  commanded  complete  assent. 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  71 

many  of  the  forces  of  nature  which  have  long  been  used 
for  human  ends  are  now  known  to  be  different  from  what 
they  were  formerly  believed  to  be.  Like  these  natural 
forces,  however,  it  may  be  benignly  indifferent  to  human 
misconception  and  ready  to  bestow  its  blessings  upon 
all  who  seek  them.  We  use  electricity  without  under- 
standing its  nature;  and  it  is  in  this  fashion  that  men 
have  used  their  gods. 

The  reality  which  has  thus  been  worshipped  and 
drawn  upon  for  strength,  encouragement  and  moral 
quickening  has  many  verifiable  aspects  which  can  be 
laid  hold  upon.  We  may  define  it  provisionally  as  the 
sum-total  of  the  good  in  the  world, — meaning  by  that 
phrase  not  merely  a  qualitative  abstraction,  but  an 
active  force  in  humanity,  and  also  all  the  concrete  factors 
of  experience  which  actually  do  make  for  the  satisfaction 
of  men's  constitutional  needs  and  the  realization  of  their 
ideal  visions.  That  this  is  what  has  been  practically 
meant  by  God  is  shown  by  the  evidence  of  common 
speech  and  by  the  unsophisticated  conduct  of  simple- 
minded  religious  people.  The  notion  of  providence  and 
of  its  intervention  points  to  a  vague  discrimination 
between  those  events  and  forces  which  are  indifferent 
or  hostile  to  human  purpose  and  those  which  are  friendly 
toward  it  and  yield  it  furtherance. 

Foremost  in  this  latter  category  conies  the  good  in 
man,  consisting  concretely  of  all  the  inward  dispositions 
and  outward  acts  which  tend  in  the  direction  of  estab- 
lishing the  ideal  order  of  human  relations.  Added  to 
these  are  all  the  forces  of  objective  nature  which  are  or 
can  be  made  subservient  to  the  same  end. 

The  totality  of  the  good  as  thus  conceived  is  a  real  and 
positive  fact  of  experience.  In  their  attempt  to  under- 


72  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

stand  it,  to  account  for  its  achievements,  its  failures,  and 
its  relation  to  the  forces  opposed  to  it,  men  have  fallen 
back  upon  myth.  The  religious  experience  is  so  deep 
and  intimate  as  to  be  inexpressible.  Since  it  involves  all 
the  problems  of  philosophy  and  science,  it  necessarily 
outruns  our  powers  of  adequate  intellectual  formulation. 
That  which  cannot  be  expressed  in  words  has  to  be  put 
into  symbols;  and  those  symbols  are  the  gods.  The 
strife  of  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  the  all-but-victorious 
revolt  of  Satan  against  Jehovah,  the  torturing  of  the 
fire-bringer  Prometheus  by  Jove, — these  and  a  hundred 
other  myths  are  the  attempts  which  men  have  made  to 
express  the  inexpressible. 

Nothing  could  be  more  pathetic,  or  more  calculated  to 
inspire  reverence  for  the  essential  fineness  of  humanity, 
than  these  attempts  to  convey  through  legends  the 
demand  which  the  soul  of  man  makes  upon  the  world, 
and  the  response  of  the  world  to  that  demand.  The 
Hebrew  prophets  were  impressed  supremely  by  the 
majesty  and  the  unconditional  binding  force  of  the 
imperative  of  conscience.  To  them,  this  was  the  very 
voice  of  God,  and  the  thought  of  its  violation  was  in- 
tolerable. They  expressed  their  sense  of  the  majesty  of 
the  law  by  objectifying  it  in  the  only  embodiment  of 
authority  that  was  familiar  to  them.  The  personality  of 
the  king  in  the  eastern  world  was  the  great  emblem  and 
centre  of  authority;  and  so  they  declared  that  God  was  a 
king  incalculably  great, — a  king  of  kings  and  lord  of  lords. 

The  Christian  founders  were  less  impressed  with  the 
inexorable  dignity  of  the  ethical  imperative  than  with 
its  loveliness  and  beneficence;  and  so  for  them  the  picture 
changes  to  that  of  a  parent.  The  eternal  moral  order  is 
imaged  as  a  father  pitying  his  children.  The  nations 


THE  RE-INTERPRETATION  OF  GOD  73 

are  prodigal  sons  who  have  wandered  from  the  true 
relations  in  which  their  salvation  consists,  but  the  father 
is  ready  to  welcome  them  with  rejoicing  the  moment 
they  are  willing  to  return. 

In  the  later  Catholic  mythology  this  sense  of  intimate 
kindliness  and  love  expresses  itself  anew  by  the  picture 
of  a  maternal  element  in  the  Godhead.  The  so-called 
Mariolatry  of  the  Roman  Church  symbolizes  an  aspect 
of  man's  relation  to  the  power  of  righteousness  which 
corresponds  to  a  deep  experience;  and  it  is  one  of  the 
shortcomings  of  Protestantism  that  it  failed  to  provide 
any  expression  for  this.  It  was  felt  that  at  the  back  of 
things  there  was  the  intuitively  compassionate  heart  of 
a  mother,  as  well  as  the  mingled  sternness  and  tenderness 
of  a  father.  Even  in  its  most  degenerate  form  (for  ex- 
ample, in  the  almost  erotic  devotion  manifested  in  St. 
Alfonso  di  Liguori's  treatise  on  Le  Glorie  di  Maria)  the 
psychology  of  this  attitude  is  traceable. 

In  order  that  justice  may  be  done  to  these  religious 
conceptions,  it  must  be  vividly  realized  that  the  ex- 
perience underlying  them  all  is  profoundly  real.  Every 
god,  from  the  brutes  of  primitive  devil-worship  to  the 
mother-love  and  the  father-love  adored  by  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi,  represents  some  aspect  of  the  world  in  its 
relation  to  the  human  will;  each  expresses  a  mood  and 
a  reaction  induced  by  actual  occurrences  of  life.  Poets 
have  quite  spontaneously  reproduced  these  pictures  of 
the  universe, — even  those  who  have  furiously  denied  the 
objective  truth  of  the  doctrines  of  theology.  All  their 
indignation  at  man's  inhumanity  and  at  the  indifference 
of  nature  has  been  prompted  by  their  inexpugnable  loy- 
alty to  "the  God  behind  the  gods."  If  we  reject  the  old 
myths,  our  chief  reason  for  doing  so  must  be  our  sense 


74  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

of  their  inadequacy.  They  do  not  exceed  the  truth; 
rather,  they  fall  short  of  it.  The  law  that  commands 
and  condemns  us,  the  moral  order  to  which  we  owe  our 
being  and  with  which  is  bound  up  all  that  we  can  hope 
for  or  aspire  to,  is  yet  nearer  and  more  intimate  than 
father  or  mother.  The  deepest  element  of  our  experience 
is  not  the  sense  of  our  dependence  upon  the  universal 
power  of  good,  but  the  sense  of  our  identity  with  it.  To 
call  it  "a  power  not  ourselves"  is  to  frame  but  a  partial 
and  misleading  characterization  of  it.  It  is  also  our- 
selves,— or  rather  Ourself.  It  is  that  ultimate  moral 
will  in  you  and  me  which  is  identical  with  the  ultimate 
will  of  all  rational  agents.  Cancel  all  the  private  eccen- 
tricities, all  the  self-centred  and  self-regarding  volitions 
and  acts  of  men,  out  of  which  come  their  sorrows,  their 
frustrations  and  their  bitternesses,  and  there  is  left  in 
each  and  in  all  one  will, — the  General  Will  of  society  as 
a  whole, — which  is  identical  with  the  universal  moral 
law.  "Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  him,"  says 
Job  the  mystic.  Yes;  because  at  bottom  I  am  he, — in 
the  sense  that,  by  virtue  of  my  constitution,  I  will  the 
decree  that  slays  me.  The  "great  commanding  good" 
that  condemns  and  will  destroy  all  that  in  me  is  base  and 
unworthy,  is  the  expression  of  my  deepest  spiritual  need, 
and  therefore  of  my  real  will,  my  inmost  selfhood.  This 
is  the  ultimate  reality  of  experience:  closer  than  breath- 
ing, nearer  than  hands  and  feet. 

If  we  can  but  train  ourselves  to  the  vivid  realization 
of  this  truth,  there  will  be  an  end  to  controversy  between 
the  theist  and  the  atheist.  We  are  all  face  to  face  with 
the  same  reality;  our  misunderstandings  arise  from  our 
persistence  in  imposing  our  inadequate  symbols  of  this 
reality  upon  one  another  as  final  and  complete  truth. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS   CHRIST 

A  PECULIAR  difficulty  stands  in  the  way  of  popular 
comprehension  and  appreciation  of  the  light  thrown  by 
modern  research  upon  the  character  and  teaching  of  the 
founder  of  Christianity.  The  old  dogmatic  and  un- 
critical interpretation  of  him  is  still  vociferous  and  con- 
fident. Its  basis,  indeed,  is  definitely  shattered.  Any- 
body who  is  willing  to  take  a  little  trouble  can  speedily 
familiarize  himself  with  facts  which  render  the  eccle- 
siastical theory  of  Jesus  as  incredible  as  the  story  of 
Romulus  and  Remus.  Yet,  owing  to  a  lack  of  courage 
on  the  part  of  those  to  whom  the  new  light  has  come, 
and  to  the  confusing  multiplicity  of  views  on  points  of 
detail  entertained  by  the  specialists;  owing,  also,  to  the 
almost  hypnotizing  effect  produced  by  the  clamant 
confidence  of  the  old  interpretation,  the  new  views  have 
scarcely  yet  begun  to  affect  the  general  consciousness. 
Indeed,  except  for  a  growing  minority  of  clergy  and  of 
thoughtful  church-members,  we  are  still  in  the  position 
which  confronted  Matthew  Arnold  more  than  forty  years 
ago.  On  the  one  hand,  believers  in  the  old  view  will 
hear  of  no  change  in  it.  Those,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
whom  that  view  is  repellent  are  apt  to  be  impatient  of 
the  whole  subject;  they  ignore  the  Bible,  and  are  not 
willing  to  submit  it  to  a  fair  and  unprejudiced  examina- 
tion. By  this  they  lose  immeasurably;  but,  as  they  are 
unconscious  of  their  loss,  they  are  content. 

75 


76  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

I  desire  in  this  chapter  to  enumerate  a  few  points  con- 
cerning the  structure  and  contents  of  the  Gospels,  which 
are  agreed  upon  by  many  competent  critics,  and  to 
offer  for  the  reader's  consideration  some  views  of  my  own 
as  to  the  meaning  and  value  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 
My  purpose  is  not  so  much  to  expose  the  error  of  the 
older  view;  it  is  rather,  by  pointing  out  elements  in  the 
Gospels  which  are  unquestionably  there  (however  one 
may  choose  to  explain  them),  to  suggest  an  interpreta- 
tion which  seems  forced  upon  us  by  the  facts,  and  which 
throws  upon  the  character  of  Jesus  a  new  light:  a  light 
that  should  endear  him  to  all  who  admire  courage,  free- 
dom of  thought,  independence  and  originality  of  moral 
judgment,  and  faithfulness  to  ideals  even  unto  death. 
My  desire  is  to  induce  men  to  re-read  the  Gospels  for 
themselves,  by  the  aid  of  principles  of  criticism  which  will 
enable  them  to  discriminate  between  earlier  and  later 
stages  in  the  tradition.  Thereby  they  will  learn  to  dis- 
entangle the  original  elements,  which  from  the  humanistic 
point  of  view  are  incomparably  grander  than  the  theory 
of  Christ  that  is  embodied  in  the  creeds  and  traditions 
of  the  Church. 

The  first  thing  needful  is  that  the  student  should  assert 
his  own  right  to  independent  judgment.  He  must  refuse 
to  be  browbeaten  either  by  the  dogmatism  of  the  ortho- 
dox expounder,  or  by  the  authority  of  the  ultra-learned 
specialist.  The  case  of  the  Gospels  is  analogous  to  that 
of  Shakespearian  criticism.  In  both  fields  we  are  con- 
fronted with  a  vast  literature  of  commentary  and  ex- 
plication, comprising  the  views  of  a  multitude  of  con- 
flicting authorities.  No  living  man  could  read  all  that 
has  been  written  upon  the  Bible,  or  even  upon  the  New 
Testament  alone,  though  he  gave  his  entire  tune  to  the 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  77 

task.  If  one  decided  not  to  read  the  Gospels  until  one 
had  mastered  all  the  critical  literature,  one  would  never 
get  to  the  Gospels  at  all.  The  wisest  course,  under  the 
circumstances,  is  to  follow  a  hint  given  by  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  in  his  most  valuable  little  book  on  Shakespeare.1 
He  advises  that  the  reader  should  first  get,  by  reading 
some  one  handbook  on  the  subject,  an  approximately 
accurate  notion  of  the  chronological  order  of  the  plays 
and  of  the  known  facts  of  Shakespeare's  life,  and  then 
should  read  the  plays  for  himself,  bringing  his  own  critical 
judgment  to  bear  upon  their  intrinsic  beauties  and  their 
relative  values. 

So,  in  regard  to  the  New  Testament,  I  would  counsel 
the  lay  student  not  to  spend  a  great  deal  of  time  in  read- 
ing criticism,  either  higher  or  lower,  either  orthodox  or 
innovating.  The  doctors  disagree  endlessly  over  details, 
and  in  the  nature  of  the  case  there  is  such  a  lack  of  re- 
liable information  regarding  date  and  authorship,  that 
confident  judgment  on  such  points  is  out  of  place  even 
for  specialists.  Very  few,  moreover,  of  the  expert 
students  have  brought  to  their  task  the  qualifications 
that  are  most  essential  for  it.  These  are,  not  the  know- 
ledge of  enormous  masses  of  facts,  not  the  ability  to  per- 
form conjuring-tricks  in  the  way  of  textual  interpreta- 
tion, but  wide  experience  of  life,  wide  knowledge  of  and 
insight  into  general  literature — especially  poetry, — and 
freedom  from  prepossession  and  prejudice. 

The  layman  cannot  do  better  than  to  begin  by  reading 
or  re-reading  Matthew  Arnold's  Literature  and  Dogma 
and  God  and  the  Bible.  He  will  soon  discover  that 
these  books,  though  written  forty  years  ago,  are  still 
amazingly  up-to-date  as  regards  essentials.  He  will, 

1  In  the  "English  Men  of  Letters"  series. 


78  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

moreover,  catch  from  Arnold  that  method  of  patient 
brooding  over  the  text  of  the  New  Testament,  which  is 
the  surest  path  to  the  attainment  of  real  insight.  He  will 
learn  in  this  way  to  allow  for  and  to  discount  the  special 
bias  of  Arnold,  and  to  root  out  misguiding  prejudice  from 
himself.  There  is  in  Arnold  a  singular  freedom  from 
pedantry,  a  trained  literary  sense,  and  a  genuine  power 
of  poetic  analysis  and  construction,  which  renders  him 
invaluable  to  all  who  seek  wisdom  rather  than  bare 
knowledge,  and  who  have  a  practical  interest  in  the 
life-value  of  great  characters  and  great  literature.  These 
remarks  apply  to  his  treatment  of  the  entire  Bible, 
though  my  special  interest  at  the  moment  is  in  his  study 
of  the  teaching  of  Jesus.1 

An  insight  less  poetic,  though  at  times  even  more 
penetrating,  is  displayed  in  the  celebrated  work  by  Sir 
John  Seeley,  entitled  Ecce  Homo.  To  read  it  is  to 
become  a  better  and  a  wiser  man,  though  its  study  would 
not  enable  one  to  pass  an  examination  in  the  technical 
problems  of  New  Testament  criticism.  Arnold's  poetic 
power  is  supplemented  by  the  statesmanlike  historic  and 
social  sense  of  Seeley.  Arnold's  thought  is  mainly  of 
the  salvation  of  individuals;  Seeley 's,  of  cities  and  na- 
tions. One  learns  from  Seeley  to  appreciate  the  ex- 
traordinary freedom,  originality  and  depth  of  insight 
displayed  by  some  man  or  men  whose  thoughts  are  pre- 
served in  the  Gospels.  One  does  not  know,  at  the  end, 
whether  these  thoughts  and  sayings  are  actually  those 
of  Jesus,  of  John  the  Baptist  or  John  the  Presbyter; 
whether  they  come  from  Mark  or  "Q,"  from  epistles  by 
Paul,  or  from  "pseudepigrapha."  One  does  not  know; 

1  In  chapters  vi,  vii,  and  viii  of  Literature  and  Dogma,  and  chapters  iv, 
v,  and  vi  of  God  and  the  Bible. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  79 

but,  what  is  more  important,  one  does  not  care.  The 
importance  of  these  problems  to  the  expert  and  the 
specialist  cannot,  indeed,  be  over-estimated;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  their  importance  to  the  layman,  who  wishes 
to  be  in  touch  with  reality  and  to  get  light  and  strength 
for  the  tasks  of  life,  can  scarcely  be  under-estimated. 

An  almost  unique  combination  of  ethical  and  poetic 
insight  with  exhaustive  scholarship  is  displayed  in  the 
great  work  on  Jesus  by  Professor  Nathaniel  Schmidt  of 
Cornell  University.1  Those  who  lack  leisure  would  do 
well  to  read  the  latter  part  of  the  fifth  chapter  of  this 
book  (beginning  at  the  middle  of  page  107  and  con- 
tinuing to  page  134).  They  should  then  read  from  the 
beginning  of  chapter  nine  (on  page  205)  to  the  end  of 
the  volume. 

Perhaps  the  finest  example  of  scientifically  competent 
and  impartial  criticism  in  this  field  is  the  masterly  study 
of  the  Gospels  contributed  to  the  Encyclopedia  Biblica 
by  Professor  Paul  Schmiedel,  of  Zurich.  It  is  a  liberal 
education  to  read  and  re-read  this  long  article,  weighing 
it  point  by  point  in  confrontation  with  the  texts  of  the 
Gospels  as  cited  and  interpreted  in  it.  The  Encyclopedia 
Biblica  can  be  consulted  at  almost  any  public  library. 
It  is  unfortunate  that  the  article  on  the  Gospels  is  not 
reprinted  in  a  volume  by  itself,  since  it  is  literally  indis- 
pensable to  all  who  desire  not  only  to  learn  facts  about 
the  Gospels,  but  to  train  themselves  in  the  art  of  sym- 
pathetic discrimination  and  exact  study  of  the  New 
Testament  texts. 

I  have  enumerated  five  sources  of  information,  three 
at  least  of  which  (i.  e.,  the  works  of  Seeley  and  Arnold) 

1  The  Prophet  of  Nazareth,  by  Nathaniel  Schmidt.  (New  York: 
Macmillan,  1905.) 


80  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

are  sneered  at  by  some  recent  critics  of  the  Bible,  who 
accuse  these  authors  of  unscholarly  procedure  simply 
because  they  are  not  pedants,  and  are  more  concerned 
with  life- values  than  with  a  microscopic  analysis  of  data 
which  have  little  meaning  for  the  ordinary  man.  This, 
however,  is  precisely  the  reason  for  my  high  valuation 
and  confident  recommendation  of  them.  What  student 
has  not  grown  weary  of  wading  through  the  ponderous 
tomes,  averaging  twenty  foot-notes  to  the  page,  in 
which  theologians  and  anti-theologians  devote  endless 
chapters  to  the  elaboration  of  arguments  which  are  of  no 
importance  even  if  true,  and  which  after  all  are  mere 
speculations?  Almost  anybody  can  compile  treatises  of 
this  kind,  if  he  is  willing  to  grub  in  libraries  after  the  man- 
ner of  Dominie  Sampson ;  but  nobody  would  be  profited 
by  his  exertions.  For  such  hack-work  little  equipment 
is  needed  beyond  the  tireless  industry  of  the  routineer, 
a  certain  amount  of  linguistic  skill,  and  an  "impartiality  " 
which  really  means  blindness  to  the  relative  importance 
of  facts.  The  thorough  study  of  the  higher  criticism  of 
the  Bible  compels  one  to  labour  through  endless  jungles 
of  this  kind;  and  this  is  perhaps  one  of  the  chief  reasons 
why  the  very  few  incontrovertible  facts  and  established 
results  in  this  field  have  not  become  widely  known. 

There  are  only  two  essential  truths  in  connection  with 
the  Gospels  which  can  be  regarded  as  beyond  dispute. 
The  first  is  that  nobody  knows  by  whom  or  exactly  when 
they  were  written;  the  second,  that  the  accounts  they 
give  of  the  career  of  Jesus  are  hopelessly  inconsistent, 
so  that  it  is  impossible  to  construct  from  them  a  co- 
herent story  of  his  life.  Probably  there  are  more  Lives 
of  Jesus  in  existence  than  there  are  books  on  any 
other  one  subject.  Yet  all  of  them  are  founded  on  these 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  8 1 

four  brief  ancient  documents,  which  are  not  contempo- 
rary with  the  alleged  events  they  record,  nor  written  by 
eye-witnesses  of  them;  and  which,  as  we  have  said,  are 
at  vital  points  irreconcilable.  No  stronger  proof  of  this 
contention  need  be  looked  for  than  the  heroic  efforts 
which  have  been  made  in  the  Church,  from  the  time  of 
Tatian  onwards,  to  "harmonize"  these  four  accounts. 
Here  we  have  a  long  series  of  efforts,  each  tacitly  con- 
fessing the  failure  of  all  that  preceded  it,  to  do  what  would 
not  need  doing  if  we  had  biographical  accounts  from 
contemporaries  of  Jesus  and  eye-witnesses  of  his  work. 

We  do  not  know  the  date  of  the  birth  of  Jesus;  we  do 
not  know  positively  the  place.  We  do  not  know  at  what 
age  he  entered  upon  his  ministry,  or  how  long  it  lasted. 
We  do  not  know  his  age  at  death,  nor  the  year  in  which 
he  died.  Not  until  centuries  after  his  time  was  a  date 
arbitrarily  chosen  for  the  observance  of  his  nativity;  and, 
when  the  choice  was  made,  it  fell  upon  the  birthday  of 
the  sun-gods.  Of  his  parents  we  know  little  more  than 
that  their  names  were  Joseph  and  Mary,  and  that  he  was 
not  their  only  son.  The  facts  of  his  birth  and  childhood 
are  lost  in  a  cloud  of  legends;  and  the  same  is  true  of  the 
end  of  his  career.  All  that  we  can  feel  certain  of  is  that 
he  died  by  crucifixion. 

This  paucity  of  information  concerning  the  outward 
career  of  one  who,  after  more  than  a  century's  develop- 
ment of  his  gospel,  was  enrolled  among  the  gods,  has 
led  some  thinkers  to  question  whether  the  name  of 
Jesus  belongs  to  history  at  all.  Within  the  last  few 
years  several  volumes  have  been  written  to  prove  that 
it  does  not.  I  have  not  space  to  enter  into  this  un- 
profitable controversy.  I  can  only  record  here  my 
conviction  that  the  mythologists  are  mistaken.  The 


82  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

chief  reason  for  believing  in  the  historicity  of  Jesus  is  the 
conflict  between  the  picture  of  him  which  criticism  can 
reconstruct  from  the  oldest  strata  of  the  Gospels,  as  a 
human  being  with  virtually  no  supernatural  attributes, 
and  the  picture  afterwards  fabricated  of  him  and  framed 
in  the  oecumenical  creeds,  as  a  transcendental  being  with 
scarcely  any  vestige  of  humanity  left  about  him.  If,  to 
put  it  briefly,  Jesus  had  from  the  first  been  conceived  of 
as  a  superhuman  person,  and  had  afterwards  (by  some 
extraordinary  collective  hallucination)  been  mistakenly 
supposed  to  have  lived  on  earth  as  a  man,  then  the 
development  traceable  in  the  accounts  of  him,  from  the 
earliest  fragments  of  the  New  Testament  to  the  time  of 
the  framing  of  the  creeds,  would  have  been  the  precise 
opposite  of  what  it  can  be  shown  to  have  been. 

Our  Gospels,  whatever  their  dates,  are  not  the  oldest 
part  of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  possible — indeed,  it  is 
probable — that  they  are  founded  upon  bare  collections  of 
the  sayings  of  Jesus,  made  by  and  for  men  who,  having 
known  him,  did  not  need  biographical  information.  But 
it  is  certain  that  by  the  time  the  demand  arose  for  an 
account  of  his  life,  those  who  could  have  told  the  story 
authentically  were  no  longer  available.  When  the 
Christian  movement  began  to  spread  as  a  missionary 
faith  there  was  a  special  and  well-understood  reason  why 
its  converts  did  not  at  first  demand  written  accounts  of 
the  earthly  career  of  their  founder.  This  reason  was 
not  the  alleged  fact  that  Jesus  had  never  lived  on  earth 
at  all,  but  the  ascertained  fact  that  those  who  believed 
in  him  expected  very  shortly  to  see  him  coming  on  the 
clouds  from  heaven,  and  to  be  taken  up  to  join  him 
there. 

The  oldest  fragments  of    the  New  Testament  are 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  83 

certain  letters  of  St.  Paul,  and  in  these  the  most  pal- 
pable fact  is  the  faith  of  the  writer  in  the  speedy  second 
coming  of  his  Lord,  to  wind  up  the  affairs  of  a  bankrupt 
and  hopeless  world.  Now  when  men  are  in  a  state  of 
tense  expectation  of  a  cosmic  transformation-scene,  when 
their  whole  gaze  is  focussed  with  earnest  yearning  upon 
the  future,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  they  shall  devote 
themselves  anxiously  to  the  collection  of  data  concerning 
the  career  of  one  whose  earthly  life  seems  to  them  but  a 
trivial  incident  in  the  midst  of  everlastingness.  St.  Paul 
was  resolved  not  to  know  Christ  "after  the  flesh,"  even 
though  he  had  formerly  done  so.  His  peculiar  position, 
moreover,  led  him  to  disparage  the  personal  intimacy  of 
his  colleagues  with  Jesus  during  his  earthly  life,  since  the 
exaltation  of  that  connection  implied  a  serious  criticism 
of  his  own  apostolic  credentials.  Thus  is  explained  the 
fact  of  the  silence  of  the  earliest  witness,  which  the 
mythologists  are  wont  to  insist  upon  as  the  chief  evidence 
of  their  contention.  Paul  was  silent  because  he  de- 
liberately wished  to  draw  the  attention  of  his  converts 
away  from  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  to  concentrate  it  upon 
his  death  and  resurrection.  I  am  not  aware  that  any  of 
the  mythological  school  have  denied  St.  Paul's  intense 
and  earnest  belief  in  the  bodily  resurrection  of  Jesus. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  a  man  could  believe  in  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  without  believing  in  his  death,  and 
in  his  death  without  believing  in  his  earthly  life.  Nor  is 
it  possible  to  read  the  Epistles  without  being  convinced 
of  the  overmastering  impression  which  had  been  made 
upon  Paul  by  the  personality  that  inspired  him.  It  is 
sheer  blindness  to  say,  as  one  of  the  new  myth-makers 
does,  that  Paul's  Jesus  is  a  mere  name,  "a  crucified 
phantom" — whatever  that  may  be.  The  one  self-evident 


84  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

and  indisputable  fact  in  Paul's  career  is  that  he  regarded 
himself  as  the  disciple  and  minister  of  another.  He  was 
no  cult-founder,  no  propagator  of  a  movement  originat- 
ing with  himself.  "I  live,"  he  said,  "yet  not  I,  but 
Christ  liveth  in  me."  With  Christ  he  was  crucified,  that 
he  might  share  in  Christ's  resurrection.  His  language 
about  the  unsearchable  riches  in  which  he  had  been  priv- 
ileged to  share,  his  desire  to  depart  and  to  be  with  the 
person  he  adored,  his  fidelity  to  a  mission  full  of  defeat 
and  discouragement, — all  these  facts  testify  not  to  hal- 
lucination or  self-deception,  but  to  such  an  inspiration 
as  necessarily  implies  behind  it  a  personality  of  rare  and 
exalted  power.1  As  easily  explain  Plato  without  Socrates 
or  Boswell  without  Johnson  as  Paul  without  Jesus. 

It  is  needless,  however,  to  pursue  an  argument  which 
to  the  majority  both  of  special  students  and  of  laymen 
is  obvious;  and  the  case  of  Paul  is  only  one  of  a  score  of 
cruces  which  confront  those  who  seek  to  remove  Jesus 
from  the  field  of  history.  Equally  insurmountable  ob- 
stacles to  such  an  attempt  await  us  in  the  pages  of  the 
Gospels  themselves.  The  moment  it  is  explained  why 
the  first  Christians  did  not  desire  information  about 
their  Lord's  career,  the  objection  on  the  ground  of  the 
incoherence  and  incredibility  of  the  biographical  details 
in  the  Gospels  is  dissipated.  But  there  is  a  further  in- 
contestable fact  of  the  highest  significance.  Just  as  St. 
Paul  is  indubitably  inspired  by  another,  whom  he  counts 
immeasurably  greater  than  himself,  so  it  becomes  obvious 
as  we  read  the  Gospels  that  their  writers  also  are  but 
the  mouthpieces  of  one  greater  than  they,  the  com- 
municators of  a  teaching  which  they,  at  all  events,  could 
not  have  invented,  the  depicters  of  a  personality  which 

1  Gal.  ii,  20;  Rom.  vi,  3-7;  Philip,  iii,  7-12,  etc. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  85 

they  were  self-evidently  incapable  of  creating.  One 
cannot  study  the  Gospels  critically  without  being  im- 
pressed by  the  naivete  and  dulness,  the  lack  of  insight 
and  imagination,  of  their  compilers.  If  we  see  children 
making  clay  figures  and  ornamenting  them  with  jewels, 
we  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  the  children  did  not  make 
the  jewels.  There  needs  no  elaborate  process  of  critical 
analysis  to  assure  us  upon  the  point.  Just  such  children 
were  the  evangelists;  and  just  so  incredible  is  it  that  they 
can  have  invented  the  teaching,  or  the  traits  of  personal 
character  disclosed  by  Jesus,  which  their  narratives  have 
perpetuated  for  us.  It  might  as  well  be  argued  that 
Heminge  and  Condell  wrote  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  as 
that  the  evangelists  invented  Jesus  and  his  teachings. 

The  consensus  of  recent  criticism  asserts  that  the  Gos- 
pel ascribed  in  our  version  to  Mark  was  in  its  original 
form  the  oldest  of  the  Synoptics,  though  in  the  form  in 
which  it  has  reached  us  many  later  touches  have  been  in- 
troduced. Matthew  and  Luke,  according  to  the  hypothe- 
sis most  generally  accepted,  proceeded  upon  a  document 
substantially  identical  with  Mark,  and  upon  one  other 
document,  now  lost,  but  capable  of  being  partially  recon- 
structed from  their  text.  The  lay  reader  can  get  for  him- 
self a  fairly  clear  idea  of  the  evidence  upon  this  point.1  Let 
him  place  the  three  Synoptics  side  by  side,  and  go  through 
them  to  find  out  what  all  three  have  in  common.  He  will 
find  that  both  Matthew  and  Luke  have  a  great  deal  from 
Mark.  When  he  has  thus  used  up  Mark,  let  him  examine 
Matthew  and  Luke  to  find  out  how  much  of  what  re- 
mains is  common  to  them.  He  will  again  find  a  great 
deal  which  they  share,  but  which  is  not  in  Mark.  By  this 

1  It  is  admirably  set  forth  in  Dr.  F.  C.  Conybeare's  Myth,  Magic  and 
Morals,  chapters  v-viii.  (London:  Watts  &  Co.,  1909.) 


86  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

time  exceedingly  little  will  be  left  of  Luke  and  Matthew. 
The  internal  evidence  further  shows  that  both  Matthew 
and  Luke  freely  adapted  the  material  which  they  drew 
from  their  sources,  and  did  so  with  clearly  denned  pur- 
poses. 

The  object  of  the  Matthew  Gospel  is  to  demonstrate  to 
Jews  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah.  As  such,  his  message 
must  be  exclusively  to  the  Jews.  He  must  be  of  Davidic 
lineage,  and  he  must  fulfil  the  prophecies  of  the  Old 
Testament  applying  to  the  Messiah.  The  Matthew 
Gospel  subordinates  everything  and  manipulates  every- 
thing to  the  end  of  sustaining  these  theses.  Luke,  on 
the  other  hand,  writes  as  a  Gentile  to  Gentiles,  selecting 
and  adapting  his  material  with  a  view  to  demonstrating 
the  universality  of  Christ's  appeal.  Thus  from  Matthew 
are  omitted  such  parables  as  those  of  the  Lost  Coin,  the 
Lost  Sheep,  the  Prodigal  Son,  the  Good  Samaritan,  the 
Pharisee  and  the  Publican,  and  the  Rich  Man  and 
Lazarus,  all  of  which  are  unmistakably  universal  in  their 
humanistic  appeal.  Matthew  inserts  many  Judaizing 
particularities  which  Luke  omits;  for  instance,  the  com- 
mand not  to  cast  pearls  before  swine,1  the  instruction  to 
the  disciples  not  to  go  into  the  way  of  the  Gentiles  or 
enter  into  any  city  of  the  Samaritans,2  and  the  un- 
equivocal statement  put  upon  the  lips  of  Jesus,  "I  was 
not  sent  but  unto  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel."  3 

This  contrast  between  Matthew  and  Luke  comes  out 
in  numerous  details.  Repeatedly  Luke  voices  condem- 
nations of  the  entire  Jewish  people  which  Matthew 
either  omits  or  converts  into  condemnations  of  the 
Pharisees  or  other  special  groups,  so  as  to  remove  the 
impression  that  the  Jewish  Messiah  condemned  his  own 

1  Matt,  vii,  6.  2  Matt,  x,  5.  »  Matt,  xv,  24. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  87 

nation  wholesale.  Several  of  these  little  traits  will  be 
detected  if  Matthew's  version  of  the  parable  of  the  Tal- 
ents (xxv,  14-30)  be  compared  with  Luke's  (xix,  12-27.) 

The  catholicity  of  Luke  as  compared  with  Matthew 
is  an  evidence  of  relative  lateness.  Mark  seems  to  have 
in  mind  the  problem  of  explaining  to  Gentiles  why,  if 
Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  he  should  have  been  rejected  by 
his  own  people.  He  does  this  by  the  hypothesis  of 
secrecy:  Jesus  would  not  suffer  his  messianic  character 
to  be  known.  Matthew,  though  he  retains  some  traces 
of  the  secrecy  hypothesis,  addresses  himself  throughout 
to  the  task  of  convincing  the  Jews  that  they  ought  to 
have  received  Jesus  as  the  Messiah.  Luke,  writing  to 
Gentiles,  is  no  longer  conscious  of  the  necessity  of  re- 
conciling the  alleged  Messiahship  with  the  Jewish  re- 
jection of  it.  The  difficulty  has  evidently  been  got  over 
in  the  meantime. 

The  argument  for  the  priority  of  Mark  is  further  rein- 
forced by  the  fact  that  many  human  traits  in  the  char- 
acter of  Jesus  are  presented  in  it  without  any  sophistica- 
tion, whereas  these  same  incidents  in  Matthew  or  Luke 
are  doctored  to  render  them  compatible  with  the  rever- 
ence for  the  person  of  Jesus  which  was  developing  among 
the  Christian  groups.  For  example,  in  Mark  vi,  5,  it  is 
represented  that  Jesus,  preaching  in  his  own  country, 
discovered  that,  owing  to  the  incredulity  of  those  who 
had  always  known  him,  "he  could  there  do  no  mighty 
work."  In  Mark  (iii,  21)  we  are  told  that  it  was  his 
friends  who  said,  "He  is  beside  himself."  Matthew  and 
Luke  ascribe  such  sayings  to  the  Pharisees  or  to  the 
"multitudes."  John  (x,  20)  declares  that  it  was  "the 
Jews"  who  said  of  Jesus,  "He  hath  a  devil  and  is  mad." 

The  development  of  the  legend  is  excellently  illus- 


88  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

trated  by  the  stories  of  the  Birth  and  Baptism  of  Jesus. 
Mark  has  no  birth-story;  those  of  Matthew  and  Luke 
are  late  additions,  and  are  in  complete  conflict  with 
each  other;  and  John,  without  any  allusion  at  all  to  the 
circumstances  of  the  birth,  simply  affirms  that  "the 
Word  was  made  flesh,"  though  later  he  twice  l  represents 
men  speaking  of  Jesus  as  "the  son  of  Joseph,"  without 
any  correction  of  their  opinion.  The  genealogies  in 
Matthew  and  Luke  have  nothing  in  common  except  the 
motive  of  demonstrating  the  Davidic  descent  of  Jesus. 
This  they  do  by  tracing  from  David  the  pedigree  of — 
Joseph.  They  thus  represent  a  stage  of  belief  when 
Jesus  was  held  to  be  something  less  than  God,  for  no 
Jew  had  ever  supposed  that  the  Messiah  was  to  be  an 
incarnation  of  the  divine  personality, — Yahwe  in  bodily 
form  on  earth.  They  also  prove  that  when  they  were 
compiled  Jesus  was  believed  to  have  been  by  normal 
generation  the  son  of  Joseph  the  carpenter.  The  sub- 
sequent working-over  of  these  genealogies  to  make  them 
consistent  with  the  doctrine  of  virgin  birth  reduces  them 
to  palpable  absurdity.  How  can  the  descent  of  a  man 
from  David  be  proved  by  giving  the  pedigree  of  one  who 
was  not  his  father?  We  know  that  in  early  times  manu- 
scripts read  at  Matt,  i,  16,  "Joseph  begat  Jesus."  We 
have  one  such  ancient  manuscript, — the  Sinaitic  Syriac 
palimpsest.  Even  without  it,  however,  the  evident 
logic  of  the  case  would  force  upon  us  the  conviction 
that  this  was  the  original  reading.  In  Luke  iii,  23,  the 
words  "as  was  supposed"  are  an  insertion,  which,  like 
the  change  in  Matt,  i,  16,  makes  utter  nonsense  of 
the  pedigree  which  it  introduces.  The  genealogies  are 
indeed  mutually  exclusive,  since  they  differ  in  detail 

1  John  i,  45,  vi,  42. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  89 

throughout.  Their  fortunate  survival,  however,  enables 
us  to  trace,  more  confidently  than  we  otherwise  could 
have  done,  the  growth  of  that  myth  which  culminates  in 
the  oecumenical  creeds. 

The  story  of  the  Baptism  illustrates  the  development 
from  another  aspect.  According  to  Mark's  account 
(i,  9-11)  there  is  no  recognition  of  Jesus  by  John,  and 
the  vision  of  the  dove  descending  from  heaven  is  seen 
by  Jesus  alone.  In  Matt,  (iii,  13-17),  John,  recog- 
nizing Jesus,  seeks  to  dissuade  him  from  undergoing 
baptism,  on  the  ground  that  John  needed  to  be  baptized 
by  Jesus,  and  not  vice  versa.  In  Luke  (iii,  22)  it  is  im- 
plied that  the  theophany  was  witnessed  by  the  multi- 
tude. According  to  John  (i,  29-34),  the  Baptist  recog- 
nizes and  announces  Jesus  not  as  the  Jewish  Messiah, 
but  as  the  eternal  divine  saviour  of  the  world.  All 
these  stories,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Mark's,  are 
refuted  by  the  subsequent  testimony  of  Matthew  and 
Luke,  which  record  that  John  sent  messengers  from  his 
prison  to  inquire  of  Jesus,  "Art  thou  he  that  should 
come,  or  look  we  for  another? "  L— an  impossible  ques- 
tion to  be  addressed  to  one  whom  he  had  from  the  first 
perceived  to  be  either  the  Messiah  or  the  Lamb  of  God, 
especially  if  that  perception  had  been  ratified  by  a 
heavenly  vision  and  voice. 

The  myth  of  the  bodily  resurrection  of  Jesus  may  have 
originated  in  misunderstanding  of  some  of  his  sayings. 
This  apparently  is  the  explanation  of  many  of  the  al- 
leged miracles.2  Several  times  the  records  betray  both 
the  good  faith  and  the  incompetence  of  the  disciples  by 
relating  how  Jesus  was  irritated  by  the  impossibility  of 

1  Matt,  xi,  3,  Luke  vii,  19. 

2  See  Schmiedel,  art.  Gospels  in  Ency.  Bib.,  §§  137,  140,  142. 


90  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

making  his  associates  understand  him.  Thus,  for  in- 
stance, the  miracle  of  the  feeding  of  multitudes  with  a 
few  loaves  and  fishes  probably  represents  a  misunder- 
standing of  the  metaphorical  use  by  Jesus  of  the  term 
bread,  in  allusions  to  his  teaching  as  the  bread  of  life. 
The  resurrection  stories  may  in  like  manner  have  taken 
their  rise  from  sayings  such  as  that  preserved  in  Mark  viii, 
35:  "For  whosoever  will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it;  but 
whosoever  shall  lose  his  life  [for  my  sake  and  the  gos- 
pel's], the  same  shall  save  it."  l  The  misapprehension 
of  such  an  idea  by  literal  or  pedantic  minds,  reinforced 
later  by  misunderstood  passages  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, may  have  given  rise  to  the  stories  of  the  bodily 
resurrection. 

These,  however,  fall  by  their  inner  incompatibilities. 
One  has  only  to  place  them  side  by  side  to  see  that  they 
are  hopelessly  inconsistent  with  each  other,  and  also 
with  the  version  of  St.  Paul.  The  Gospel  of  Mark  origin- 
ally ended  at  the  eighth  verse  of  chapter  xvi.2  All  that 
is  narrated  of  the  resurrection  up  to  that  point  is  the 
story  of  an  empty  tomb  and  a  vision  of  a  young  man 
in  a  white  garment  seen  by  two  frightened  women.  Luke 
multiplies  the  one  young  man  into  two,  and  the  long 
white  garment  into  "shining  garments,"  and  then  pro- 
ceeds to  add  a  number  of  details  not  given  hi  any  other 
Gospel.  Matthew  explains  the  rolling  away  of  the  stone 
by  an  earthquake,  and  transforms  Mark's  young  man 
into  an  angel  of  the  Lord,  descended  from  heaven,  with 
a  countenance  like  lightning.  Matthew  also  preserves 

1  Comparison  with  Matt,  x,  39,  and  Luke  xvii,  33,  together  with 
other  reasons,  makes  it  highly  probable  that  the  bracketed  words  did 
not  form  part  of  the  original  saying. 

2  See  footnote  to  Mark  xvi,  9,  in  R.  V. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  91 

Mark's  tradition  that  the  risen  Jesus,  according  to 
previous  appointment,  had  gone  to  Galilee.  Luke,  on 
the  contrary,  declares  that  Jesus  met  two  disciples  near 
Jerusalem,  with  whom  he  returned  to  the  city.  John's 
version  differs  from  all  the  rest  by  having  two  of  the 
disciples  on  hand  to  meet  the  one  woman  who  discovered 
that  the  sepulchre  was  open.  This  one  woman,  after 
her  interview  with  two  angels  at  the  tomb,  turns  and 
meets  Jesus  in  the  garden,  but  does  not  recognize  him. 
John  has  many  other  post-resurrection  stories  peculiar 
to  himself,  among  them  that  of  the  scepticism  of  Thomas. 
This  incident  probably  finds  its  motive  in  the  need  of 
refuting  the  Docetic  heresy,  according  to  which  Jesus 
had  never  really  lived  in  the  flesh  at  all,  but  was,  through- 
out his  earthly  career,  a  mere  phantom. 

The  growth  of  the  legend,  and  our  knowledge  of  the 
motives  for  inventing  it,  justify  us  in  setting  it  aside  as 
unhistorical,  without  wasting  time  over  the  problem  of 
whether  the  re-animation  of  a  truly  dead  man  after 
thirty-six  hours  or  more  is  or  is  not  physically  possible. 
Huxley,  following  some  writers  of  the  older  German  ra- 
tionalistic school,  argues  that  there  is  no  clear  proof 
in  the  Gospels  that  Jesus  was  really  dead  when  he  was 
taken  down  from  the  cross.  He  might  simply  have 
swooned,  and  emerged  from  his  grave  when  he  recovered. 
According  to  Mark  it  cannot  be  said  that  Jesus  remained 
in  his  grave  until  the  morning  of  the  third  day.  It  was 
then  that  the  stone  was  found  to  have  been  removed; 
but  it  might  have  been  displaced  at  any  time  on  the 
day  preceding.  One  need  not  take  the  Huxleian  hy- 
pothesis too  seriously;  yet  the  very  fact  that  it  could 
be  framed  without  forcing  the  testimony  of  the  Gospels 
demonstrates  the  looseness  of  structure  of  the  narratives. 


92  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

The  miraculous  legend  of  Jesus,  however,  grew  up 
only  because  of  the  impression  produced  upon  simple- 
minded  contemporaries  by  his  personality  and  his 
teaching;  and  for  us  to-day  it  is  by  his  teaching  that  he 
must  stand  or  fall.  If  we  find  evidence  justifying  the 
early  impression  that  "never  man  spake"  as  he,  this  will 
give  us  sufficient  ground  to  entertain  for  him  a  rational 
veneration,  and  to  ascribe  to  his  words  the  same  kind  of 
authority  as  we  attribute  to  any  other  sage  or  artist, — 
the  degree  of  the  authority  varying  with  the  comparative 
value  of  the  message.  The  modern  religious  revolution 
does  not  consist  in  the  rejection  of  miracles:  it  consists 
in  the  rejection  of  idolatry.  Any  teacher  becomes  an  idol 
the  moment  men  believe  things  merely  because  he  said 
them,  instead  of  believing  in  him  because  of  the  inherent 
truth  and  worth  of  the  things  he  said.  If  you  believe,  for 
example,  in  the  principle  of  human  brotherhood  because 
Christ  taught  it,  you  are  an  idolater;  but  if  you  believe  in 
Christ  because  he  taught  brotherhood,  which  you  accept 
on  independent  grounds  of  reason  and  conscience,  your 
veneration  for  him  is  morally  and  rationally  legitimate. 
So  that,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  religion  of  experience, 
the  only  question  is  whether  we  have  in  the  words  of 
Jesus  some  real  contribution  of  wisdom  and  insight  which 
we  do  not  get  so  convincingly  or  so  finely  put  from  other 
teachers. 

It  is  this  circumstance  which  renders  so  essentially 
irrelevant  the  logomachy  over  the  historicity  of  Jesus. 
The  teaching  of  the  Gospels  is  what  it  is,  from  whomso- 
ever it  may  come.  Our  estimate  of  the  teacher  is  de- 
pendent upon  the  value  of  the  teaching,  not  vice  versa. 
To  say  that  it  comes  not  from  Jesus,  but  from  anonymous 
disciples  of  one  who  never  lived,  is  rather  more  idle 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  93 

than  the  dictum  of  the  schoolboy,  that  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  were  written  not  by  Homer,  but  by  another 
poet  of  the  same  name. 

Now  there  is  in  the  recorded  utterances  of  Jesus  one 
element  about  which  the  new  mythological  school  is  for 
the  most  part  significantly  silent.  I  refer  to  the  Parables. 
The  specifically  ethical  maxims  of  Jesus  are  not  indu- 
plicable;  all,  or  almost  all,  of  them  can  be  found  in  earlier 
writings,  Jewish  and  Gentile.  This  is  not  remarkable, 
even  if  Buckle  be  not  wholly  right  in  his  contention  that 
there  are  no  discoveries  in  morals.  But  where  are  we 
to  look  for  anticipations  of  the  form,  the  contents,  and 
the  deep  humanistic  insight  of  the  Parables  of  Jesus? 
To  their  literary  excellence  I  shall  quote,  instead  of  using 
poorer  words  of  my  own,  the  following  eloquent  testi- 
mony of  Professor  Nathaniel  Schmidt: — 

In  one  province  of  art  Jesus  was  a  master.  No  man  ever 
spoke  as  he.  The  beauty  of  his  speech  was  as  marked  as  its 
originality.  Even  the  handful  of  fragments  that  has  come 
down  to  us  gives  an  impression  of  his  extraordinary  power. 
Though  Oriental  oratory  abounds  in  figurative  language  and 
illustrative  anecdote,  and  volumes  of  wise  sayings  prized  "as 
apples  of  gold  in  baskets  of  silver"  have  been  preserved  from 
Hebrew  antiquity,  there  is  nothing  that  even  approaches  the 
parable  of  Jesus.  It  has  the  excellence  that  forbids  imitation. 
There  are  works  of  art  so  perfect  in  their  kind  that  the  world 
instinctively  leaves  the  sacred  ground  pre-empted  by  genius 
for  other  fields  of  endeavour.  The  beauty  of  nature  im- 
pressed itself  upon  the  sensitive  mind  of  Jesus,  and  was  re- 
flected in  the  simplicity  and  grandeur,  the  harmony  and 
radiance,  of  his  speech.  Each  work  of  art  in  the  Galilean 
master's  gallery  stands  forth  in  maiden  purity,  chaste,  modest 
and  unconscious  of  its  loveliness,  yet  breathes  the  breath  of 


94  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

life.  These  characters  of  his  creation  will  live  as  long  as  the 
human  race.  Churches  may  rise  and  fall,  theological  systems 
may  come  and  go,  works  of  great  merit  may  be  dropped  into 
the  limbo  of  forgotten  things,  but  the  love  of  inspiring  art 
will  itself  secure  against  oblivion  the  Good  Samaritan,  Dives 
and  Lazarus,  the  Foolish  Virgins,  the  Prodigal  Son,  the 
Sower,  the  Widow,  the  Shepherd,  and  their  companions. 
Jesus  may  have  known  next  to  nothing  of  sculpture  and 
painting,  of  music  and  drama,  and  may  have  had  no  idea  of 
their  place  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  development  of  man; 
but  he  knew  as  few  know  the  art  of  touching  all  the  chords 
that  vibrate  within  the  soul,  the  emotions,  the  will  and  the 
mind,  and  to  lift  and  refine  whenever  he  touched  them.1 

The  parables  of  Jesus  have  suffered  in  a  specially  acute 
degree  from  the  general  neglect  into  which  the  Bible  has 
fallen.  More  than  any  other  part  of  the  New  Testament 
(except  perhaps  the  Apocalypse),  they  have  been  the 
hunting-ground  for  wild  and  fantastic  exegesis.  They 
have  been  converted,  as  Professor  Jiilicher  2  pithily  ex- 
presses it,  from  Gleichnissreden  into  allegories.  Esoteric 
meanings  have  been  vainly  sought  in  every  item  of 
the  imagery, — in  the  ring,  the  shoe,  the  lamp,  the  talent. 
St.  Augustine,  though  not  perhaps  one  of  the  worst 
sinners  in  this  respect,  is  yet  responsible  for  the  use  of 
the  phrase  "Compel  them  to  come  in,"  taken  from  the 
parable  of  the  Banquet,  as  a  justification  for  religious 
persecution.  So  preposterously  has  the  evident  sense  and 
the  literary  structure  of  the  parables  been  distorted,  to 
force  them  to  yield  meanings  of  which  their  author  can- 
not have  dreamed,  that  one  is  bound  to  sympathize  with 
the  legendary  schoolboy,  who,  having  been  taught  that  a 
parable  is  "an  earthly  story  with  a  heavenly  meaning," 
1  Schmidt,  op.  cit.,  pp.  362-63.  2  Art.  Parables  in  Ency.  Bib. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  95 

inverted  the  definition  in  his  examination  paper,  and 
declared  that  a  parable  is  a  heavenly  story  with  no 
earthly  meaning.  The  follies  of  commentators,  however, 
cannot  justly  be  visited  upon  the  head  of  Jesus,  any  more 
than  in  the  case  of  any  other  poet.  The  cure  for  false  the- 
ology, said  Emerson,  is  mother- wit;  and  the  cure  for  pe- 
dantic absurdities  of  interpretation  is  a  re-examination  of 
the  texts  in  the  light  of  common  sense  and  literary  insight. 

The  parable  form  is  not  peculiar  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment. There  are  several  examples  of  it  in  the  Old 
Testament,  one  of  which  (the  homily  read  by  Nathan  to 
David  in  II  Samuel  xii,  1-7)  is  as  fine  and  apt  as  anything 
in  the  Gospels.  But  whereas  the  parable  is  rare  and 
exceptional  in  the  older  scriptures,  in  the  Gospels  it  is 
usual  and  frequent.  It  is  there  that  we  find  ascribed  to 
Jesus  those  masterpieces  which,  as  Schmidt  says,  forbid 
imitation. 

The  first  problem  that  confronts  us  when  we  begin  to 
study  the  use  of  the  parable  by  Jesus  is  the  question  of 
the  secrecy  of  his  teaching.  This,  as  we  have  noted 
above,  is  the  thesis  of  Mark.  The  deliverances  of  that 
evangelist  are  somewhat  incoherent,  both  among  them- 
selves and  as  compared  with  the  testimony  of  the  other 
Gospels.  Mark  iv,  10-13,  reads  as  follows: 

(10)  And  when  he  was  alone,  they  that  were  about  him 
with  the  twelve  asked  of  him  the  parables,  (n)  And  he 
said  unto  them,  Unto  you  is  given  the  mystery  of  the  kingdom 
of  God:  but  unto  them  that  are  without,  all  things  are  done 
in  parables:  (12)  that  seeing  they  may  see,  and  not  perceive; 
and  hearing  they  may  hear,  and  not  understand;  lest  haply 
they  should  turn  again,  and  it  should  be  forgiven  them. 
(13)  And  he  saith  unto  them,  Know  ye  not  this  parable? 
and  how  shall  ye  know  all  the  parables? 


96  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

Verses  n  and  12,  with  their  bitter  cynicism,  are  pre- 
sumably a  later  insertion,  since  verse  13  follows  nat- 
urally after  verse  10.  Moreover,  these  two  added  verses 
are  flatly  incongruous  with  verses  21-24  of  the  same 
chapter,  and  more  particularly  with  verses  33  and  34, 
which  give  the  following  humane  and  common-sense 
explanation  of  the  use  of  parables: 

And  with  many  such  parables  spake  he  the  word  unto 
them,  as  they  were  able  to  hear  it:  and  without  a  parable 
spake  he  not  unto  them:  but  privately  to  his  own  disciples 
he  expounded  all  things. 

The  same  explanation  is  given  also  in  Matt,  xiii,  13: 

Therefore  speak  I  to  them  in  parables;  because  seeing 
they  see  not,  and  hearing  they  hear  not,  neither  do  they 
understand. 

The  question,  however,  is  again  complicated  by  the 
citation  from  Isaiah  in  verses  14  ff. 

Here,  then,  we  have  two  explanations; — the  one,  that 
Jesus  taught  in  parables  because  without  them  the 
multitude  could  not  understand;  the  other,  that  he  used 
the  parables  in  order  to  prevent  them  from  understanding 
him.  This  is  a  charming  problem,  over  which  the 
harmonizers  and  reconcilers  may  quarrel  till  doomsday. 
The  higher  critics  as  a  rule  assume  that  the  two  tradi- 
tions are  mutually  exclusive.  We  may  readily  agree 
with  them  that  Jesus  cannot  be  correctly  reported  in  this 
particular  place  both  by  Matthew  and  Mark.  It  cer- 
tainly is  not  conceivable  that  he  can  have  said  both  these 
things  at  the  same  time,  in  reply  to  questions  from  his 
disciples  about  the  parable  of  the  Sower. 

We  ought,  however,  to  remember  that  every  man  says 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  97 

conflicting  things  upon  different  occasions,  and  that 
each  of  two  assertions  which  are  incompatible  with  each 
other  may  be  consistent  with  the  special  circumstances 
of  the  moment  at  which  it  is  uttered.  Everything  we 
say  presupposes  a  huge  context  of  things  which  we  do  not 
say,  but  which,  being  understood  and  taken  for  granted 
by  our  companions,  provides  the  necessary  light  for  the 
interpretation  of  our  words.  If  isolated  fragments  of 
the  conversation  of  any  man  were  jotted  down  in  differ- 
ent years  and  afterwards  juxtaposed  by  some  clumsy 
redactor,  a  thousand  seeming  inconsistencies  could  not 
fail  to  arise.  So  it  well  may  be  that  Jesus  at  different 
times  adopted  different  courses.  One  cannot  believe, 
indeed,  that  he  resorted  to  the  trick  of  systematically 
dividing  his  teaching  into  exoteric  and  esoteric;  but  there 
are  traces  of  a  growing  conflict  between  him  and  the 
religious  and  political  authorities  of  his  nation,  which 
may  at  times  have  forced  upon  him  a  device  to  which 
every  propagandist  is  sometimes  compelled  to  resort, — 
that,  namely,  of  using  language  which  would  convey 
his  meaning  to  the  initiated  and  to  sympathizers,  while 
concealing  it  from  hostile  outsiders. 

Jesus  evidently  foresaw  the  fact  that  his  work  would 
some  day  bring  him  into  collision  with  the  ruling  powers. 
He  was  no  revolutionist  in  the  vulgar  sense, — no  claptrap 
Messiah  seeking  to  establish  a  petty  kingdom  in  place  of 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Roman  Empire.  He  was,  how- 
ever, a  propagandist  of  ethical  and  social  principles 
calculated  to  produce  disturbance  within  any  existing 
system  of  government,  civil  or  religious.  To  demand 
social  righteousness  is  more  menacing  than  to  seek  to 
substitute  monarchy  for  imperialism,  or  republicanism 
for  monarchy.  To  insist  upon  the  cleansing  of  the  inside 


98  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

of  the  cup  is  more  far-reaching  than  to  change  a  king  into 
a  president,  or  a  priest  into  a  minister.  There  is  con- 
siderable uncertainty  as  to  the  exact  shape  which  the 
idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God  took  in  the  mind  of  Jesus.1 
Nobody  but  a  pedant  can  pretend  to  give  a  detailed 
chart  of  the  order  of  society  which  would  come  about 
through  the  adoption  of  just  principles.  But  that  Jesus 
became  early  suspected  of  revolutionary  designs  is  made 
clear,  among  other  things,  by  the  entrapping  questions 
occasionally  put  to  him.  And  that  he  saw  through  the 
wiles  of  his  enemies  is  shown  by  the  evasive  answers  he 
returned.  For  example,  when  priests  and  scribes  inquire 
as  to  the  authority  by  which  he  taught  and  laboured,  he 
replies  by  asking  them  a  question  concerning  the  creden- 
tials of  John  the  Baptist,  which  they  dare  not  answer.2 
And  again,  when  certain  politicians  seek  to  embroil  him 
either  with  the  people  or  with  the  Roman  authorities  by  a 
trick  question  about  the  lawfulness  of  paying  tribute  to 

1  Considerations  of  space,  as  well  as  of  subject-matter,  constrain  me 
to  omit  the  discussion  of  the  now  fashionable  theory  of  "  thorough- 
going eschatology,"  set  forth  in  many  recent  works,  and  with  special 
freshness  and  ability  by  Albert  Schweitzer,  in  The  Quest  of  the  Historical 
Jesus  and  The  Mystery  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.    Readers  familiar  with  the 
controversy  will  agree,  I  think,  that  the  arguments  in  the  text  do  not  de- 
pend for  their  validity  upon  the  determination  of  the  eschatological  issue. 

2  Mk.  xi,  27-33,  R.  V.:  "And  they  come  again  to  Jerusalem:  and  as  he 
was  walking  in  the  temple,  there  come  to  him  the  chief  priests,  and  the 
scribes,  and  the  elders;  and  they  said  unto  him,  By  what  authority  doest 
thou  these  things?  or  who  gave  thee  this  authority  to  do  these  things? 
And  Jesus  said  unto  them,  I  will  ask  of  you  one  question,  and  answer 
me,  and  I  will  tell  you  by  what  authority  I  do  these  things.    The  bap- 
tism of  John,  was  it  from  heaven,  or  from  men?  answer  me.    And  they 
reasoned  with  themselves  saying,  If  we  shall  say,  From  heaven;  he  will 
say,  Why  then  did  ye  not  believe  him?    But  should  we  say,  From  men — 
they  feared  the  people :  for  all  verily  held  John  to  be  a  prophet.   And  they 
answered  Jesus  and  say,  We  know  not.    And  Jesus  saith  unto  them, 
Neither  tell  I  you  by  what  authority  I  do  these  things." 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  99 

Caesar,  he  replies  with  an  oracular  dictum  that  reminds 
one  of  Captain  Jack  Bunsby.1 

Professor  Jiilicher  opposes  to  the  secrecy  theory  the 
alleged  fact  that  a  great  body  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
addressed  to  the  multitudes  is  non-parabolic,  instancing 
especially  the  long  passage,  Matt,  v,  i-vii,  27.  Here, 
however,  arises  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  all  the 
problems  connected  with  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  This 
long  passage  is  introduced  with  the  statement  that  the 
teaching  it  contains  was  addressed  exclusively  to  the 
immediate  disciples.2  Unfortunately,  the  evangelist 
creates  a  problem  for  us  by  informing  us  (vii,  28)  that 
"When  Jesus  had  finished  these  words,  the  multitudes 
were  astonished  at  his  teaching:  for  he  taught  them  as  one 
having  authority,  and  not  as  their  scribes."  Here  we 
have  another  splendid  file  for  the  harmonizers  to  break 
their  teeth  upon. 

The  dilemma  is  presented  over  again  in  the  correspond- 
ing passage  of  St.  Luke.  That  Gospel  informs  us  (vi,  20) 
that  "He  lifted  up  his  eyes  on  his  disciples,  and  said" — 

1  Mk.  xii,  13-17,  R.  V.:  "And  they  send  unto  him  certain  of  the  Phar- 
isees and  of  the  Herodians,  that  they  might  catch  him  in  talk.  And 
when  they  were  come,  they  say  unto  him,  Master,  we  know  that  thou 
art  true,  and  carest  not  for  any  one;  for  thou  regardest  not  the  person 
of  men,  but  of  a  truth  teachest  the  way  of  God:  Is  it  lawful  to  give 
tribute  unto  Caesar  or  not?  Shall  we  give,  or  shall  we  not  give?  But  he, 
knowing  their  hypocrisy,  said  unto  them,  Why  tempt  ye  me?  bring  me 
a  penny,  that  I  may  see  it.  And  they  brought  it.  And  he  saith  unto 
them,  Whose  is  this  image  and  superscription?  And  they  said  unto 
him,  Cassar's.  And  Jesus  said  unto  them,  Render  unto  Caesar  the 
things  that  are  Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's.  And 
they  marvelled  greatly  at  him." 

z  Matt,  v,  i :  "And  seeing  the  multitudes,  he  went  up  into  the  mountain: 
and  when  he  had  sat  down,  his  disciples  came  unto  him:  and  he  opened 
his  mouth  and  taught  them,  saying,"  etc.  The  plain  implication  is  that 
he  had  climbed  the  hill  to  escape  from  the  crowds  which  had  followed 
him  from  Galilee,  Decapolis,  and  elsewhere.  (See  the  preceding  verses.) 


100  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

all  that  follows  down  to  verse  49.  Then  it  is  straightway 
added:  "After  he  had  ended  all  his  sayings  in  the  ears  of 
the  people,  he  entered  into  Capernaum." 

It  is  palpable  that  the  teaching  in  Matthew  which 
begins  with  the  Beatitudes  and  continues  for  three  whole 
chapters  was  never  given  consecutively  as  a  sermon. 
No  teacher  would  utter  seriatim,  without  comment  or 
connecting  words,  such  a  series  of  quintessential  maxims 
and  epigrams.  They  epitomize  the  reflection  and  the 
garnered  wisdom  of  a  lifetime.  Many  of  them,  too,  are 
old  sayings,  earlier  versions  of  which  have  been  traced, — 
for  example,  in  one  of  the  recently  recovered  translations 
of  the  Book  of  Enoch.  On  grounds  of  general  probability 
we  may  infer  that  much  of  this  teaching  was  voiced  by 
Jesus  both  publicly  to  the  multitude  and  privately  to  his 
immediate  coadjutors,  but  also  that  much  of  it  was  given 
to  the  latter  alone.  The  comparison  between  his  auditors 
and  the  persecuted  prophets,1  for  instance,  is  enormously 
more  appropriate  as  addressed  to  a  select  group  of  co- 
workers  than  to  the  indiscriminate  crowd.  The  char- 
acterization, again,  of  those  addressed  as  the  salt  of  the 
earth  2  is  practically  impossible  as  applied  to  a  promis- 
cuous assembly,  containing  enemies  as  well  as  friends. 

Again,  there  is  much  in  the  so-called  Sermon  which 
seems  fanatical  and  impracticable  if  construed  as  counsel 
to  ordinary  men  for  the  guidance  of  ordinary  life,  but 
which  is  emphatically  wise  and  appropriate  as  a  code  for 
the  conduct  of  missionaries  of  an  unpopular  cause,  likely 
to  encounter  persecution.3  Non-resistance  as  a  maxim 

1  Matt  v,  ii-i2.  2  Matt,  v,  13. 

1 E.  g.,  Matt,  v,  38-48,  containing  the  doctrine  of  non-resistance,  the 
command  to  turn  the  other  cheek,  to  give  the  cloak  to  him  who  takes 
the  coat,  etc 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  101 

for  the  laity  would  make  life  impossible.  It  would  enable 
the  masterful  to  inherit  the  earth,  and  lead  to  bitter 
enslavement  for  all  but  a  handful  of  mankind.  Yet  this 
very  attitude  is  that  which  makes  the  martyr  invulnera- 
ble, and  gives  to  the  prophet  of  spiritual  reformation  an 
irresistible  authority.  There  is  nothing  in  the  career  of 
Jesus  consistent  with  the  notion  that  he  was  a  senti- 
mental fanatic  of  the  Tolstoian  type.  He  was  quite 
ready  both  to  denounce  judgment  upon  evildoers  and  to 
resort  to  the  use  of  force  when  the  matter  in  dispute  was 
not  a  personal  one.1  He  would  not,  however,  seek  to 
avenge  by  violence  any  insult  or  injury  to  himself.  It 
seems,  then,  not  altogether  arbitrary  to  suggest  that  this 
much-criticized  teaching  of  non-resistance  was  part  of 
the  special  instruction  given  by  Jesus  to  the  disseminators 
of  his  message,  with  a  view  to  those  peculiar  exigencies  of 
their  task  to  which  it  is  admirably  adapted.  Such  an 
interpretation  accords  at  least  as  well  with  the  context  of 
the  Gospels  as  the  contrary  one;  and  it  has  the  advantage 
of  rescuing  Jesus  from  the  imputation  (so  inconsistent,  as 
we  shall  see,  with  the  rest  of  his  teaching)  of  being  a  kind 
of  Sunday-school  milksop. 

Returning  to  the  question  of  secrecy,  we  may  note  the 
objection,  based  on  Matt,  xxi,  45,  that  the  Pharisees  who 
had  overheard  the  parable  of  the  Vineyard  understood  it, 
and  saw  that  it  was  meant  for  them.  I  would  repeat, 
however,  that  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  Jesus 
never  desired  to  conceal  his  meaning.  His  fondness  for 
the  aphorism,  "He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear," 
suggests  an  acute  and  almost  humorous  sense  of  the 
differences  of  capacity  among  his  auditors.  He  knew  by 
close  observation  how  self-centredness  and  self -deification 
1  Matt,  xxi,  12  ff.,  Mark  xi,  15  ff.,  John  ii,  14  ff. 


102  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

render  the  perception  obtuse.  His  own  familiar  friends 
were  sadly  impenetrable,  and  he  often  resents  the  ne- 
cessity of  laboriously  explaining  to  them  things  that 
should  have  been  self-evident.1  It  is  obvious  that  he 
often  suffered,  as  would  any  poet  whose  figurative  speech 
was  taken  literally;  and  it  well  may  be  that  weariness  of 
this  sometimes  led  him  to  say,  not  without  irritation, 
"He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear." 

A  remarkable  analogy  exists  between  the  parables  of 
Christ  and  the  ancient  folk-lore  fables  which  we  associate 
with  the  name  of  ^Esop.  These  illustrate  exactly  that 
combination  of  secrecy  and  openness  which  we  find  in 
the  tales  of  Jesus.  It  has  sometimes  seemed  to  me  that 
the  only  people  who  can  suppose  ^Esop's  fables  to  be  fit 
reading  for  young  children  are  those  who  having  eyes  see 
not,  and  having  ears  fail  to  hear.  For  these  fables  mask 
under  their  delightful  imagery  all  the  bitter  and  tragic 
resentment  of  the  poor  and  enslaved  against  the  rich  and 
prosperous.  The  cunning  they  commend  is  a  cynical 
crystallization  of  the  lesson  taught  by  cruel  experience  of 
the  inhumanity  of  the  "haves "  to  the  "have-nots."  The 
earthen  pot  floating  down  the  stream  must  avoid  the 
brass  pot,  for,  if  the  two  collide,  the  earthen  pot  will  be 
shattered  to  fragments.  The  earthen  pot  is  the  poor 
man;  he  must  avoid  the  society  of  the  rich  and  powerful. 
Such  is  also  the  half-concealed  meaning  of  the  stories  of 
the  wolf  and  the  lamb,  the  fox  and  the  goat.  ^Esop 
warns  the  poor  and  the  enslaved  to  be  on  their  guard 
against  the  blandishments  and  the  heartless  deceits  of  the 
rich  and  free. 

1  Matt,  xv,  15  ff.;  xvi,  9  ff.;  Mark  viii,  16  ff.  The  characterization  of 
his  followers  as  "babes"  (Matt,  xi,  25),  if  authentic,  is  another  evidence 
of  his  sense  of  the  situation. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  103 

One  great  group  of  the  parables  of  Jesus  is  in  like  man- 
ner addressed  to  the  poor  and  oppressed.  These  parables 
are  not  bitterly  cynical  like  the  fables  of  ^Esop,  and  they 
do  not  convey  a  sense  of  hopelessness  and  helplessness, 
like  that  which  breathes  through  the  fable  of  the  earthen 
pot.  They  are  rather  an  appeal  to  self-reliance  and  co- 
operation, implying  a  confident  consciousness  that  by 
these  means  the  blessings  of  which  the  poor  and  outcast 
are  deprived  could  be  won. 

There  is  in  the  sayings  of  Jesus  a  realistic  sense  of  the 
actual  conditions  of  life,  which  for  his  time,  and  in  view 
of  his  circumstances,  is  amazingly  original.  He  insists 
that  people  seeking  any  sort  of  advancement  in  life  must 
rely  upon  themselves,  and  not  trust  to  outside  powers. 
He  repeatedly  emphasizes  that  doctrine  of  the  moral 
indifference  of  nature  which,  as  presented  by  thinkers  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  has  been  denounced  as  atheistic. 
He  points  to  the  fact  that  the  sun  shines  impartially  on 
the  just  and  the  unjust,  and  the  rain  falls  alike  on  the  evil 
and  on  the  good.  There  is  a  favourite  saying  of  his  which 
in  the  three  Synoptics  is  repeated  five  times  over,1  a  fact 
which  justifies  the  inference  that  it  was  a  characteristic 
maxim,  repeated  many  more  than  five  tunes  by  Jesus. 
This  is  the  saying,  rendered  with  slight  differences  of 
wording:  "To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,  and  from  him 
that  hath  not  shall  be  taken  even  that  which  he  hath." 
There  could  not  be  a  more  perfect  summary  of  the  doc- 
trine familiarly  known  to  us  as  the  struggle  for  existence 
and  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

The  denial  of  special  providences,  conveyed  by  the 
aphorism  about  the  sun  and  the  rain,  is  repeated  very  em- 

1  Matt,  xiii,  13,  xxv,  29  (Parable  of  Talents),  Mark  iv,  25,  Luke  viii,  18, 
xix,  26. 


104  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

phatically  in  Luke  xiii,  1-5,  in  which  Jesus  declares  that 
victims  of  a  barbarous  sentence  and  a  tragic  accident  were 
not  thereby  proved  to  be  worse  sinners  than  their  neigh- 
bours. This  is  a  stinging  rebuke  to  the  towering  egotism 
which  imagines  that  the  order  of  the  universe  is  inter- 
rupted to  inflict  exemplary  punishment  upon  wrong- 
doers or  bestow  palmary  rewards  upon  individuals  of 
exceptional  piety.  Jesus  is  almost  as  satirical  as  Hotspur 
to  the  braggart  Glendower.1 

In  studying  the  parables  of  Jesus,  then*  we  must  begin 
by  clearing  our  minds  of  the  Sunday-school  notion  of  the 
man  whose  teaching  lies  before  us.  He  is  not  a  senti- 
mentalist, not  a  dreamer;  not  a  bloodless  phantasm,  such 
as  he  is  made  to  look  in  many  of  the  old  pictures.  Neither 
is  he  a  pedantic  theologian,  bent  on  forcing  the  facts  of 
life  to  fit  some  preconceived  theory.  Rather,  he  is  at 
once  a  poet  and  a  reformer.  He  is  "  that  most  formidable 
of  all  combinations,  a  mystic  and  a  man  of  action."  He 
has,  indeed,  a  serene  and  imperturbable  faith  in  the 
ultimate  Tightness  of  things.  His  confidence  that  the 
universe  is  sound  at  heart  reposes  upon  the  mystic  in- 
tuition that  the  disinterested  and  super-personal  will  in 
himself  is  identical  with  the  innermost  core  of  the  world. 
But  this  intuition, — which  is  in  truth  the  working  faith 
of  all  reformers  and  martyrs, — is  consistent  with  the 
clearest  and  most  unilluded  perception  of  the  obstacles 

1  King  Henry  IV,  Part  I,  Act  iii,  Scene  i: 
Glendower:  At  my  nativity 

The  front  of  heaven  was  full  of  fiery  shapes 

Of  burning  cressets;  and  at  my  birth 

The  frame  and  huge  foundation  of  the  earth 

Shaked  like  a  coward. 
Hotspur:  Why,  so  it  would  have  done  at  the  same  season,  if  your  mother's 

cat  had  but  kitten'd,  though  yourself  had  never  been  born. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  105 

and  resistances  to  righteousness  opposed  not  only  by  the 
outer  world,  but  also  by  the  self-regarding  will  of  men  and 
women,  and  especially  of  the  masters  of  things  as  they 
are.  Jesus  feels  that  most  of  the  evils  suffered  by  the 
poor  and  the  oppressed  are  due  to  their  own  apathy,  and 
to  their  neglect  of  the  irresistible  power  which  they 
unitedly  could  exercise. 

His  call  to  them  is,  accordingly,  a  challenge  to  alertness 
and  efficiency.  It  is  perhaps  not  surprising  that  the 
old  doctrinal  interpretation  assigned  fantastic  theological 
meanings  to  these  parables,  for  their  lesson  is  not,  in  the 
ordinary  narrow  sense,  an  ethical  one.  In  the  parable  of 
the  Tares,1  of  the  Thief,2  of  the  Hidden  Treasure,3  of  the 
Pearl,4  of  the  Lost  Sheep,5  as  well  as  in  the  longer  stories 
of  the  Talents,6  the  Ten  Virgins,7  and  the  Wedding  Gar- 
ment,8 we  have  no  neat  little  examples  of  "material  for 
moral  instruction,"  with  the  moral  symmetrically  nailed 
on  at  the  end,  but  vivid  hints  of  the  hard  and  brutal 
reality  that  confronts  men, — especially  those  men  who 
seek  the  good.  These  parables  all  centre  in  the  idea  that 
many  are  called  and  few  chosen,  and  that  the  prize  of 
success  in  any  undertaking  goes  only  to  him  that  hath — 
to  him,  that  is,  who  is  endowed  with  that  minimum  of 
advantages  which  enables  him  to  cope  successfully  with 
his  environment. 

The  most  sensational  instance  of  this  ruthless  realism  is 
afforded  by  the  parable  of  the  Unjust  Steward,  which  has 
always  been  a  stumbling-block  to  commentators.  The 
version  we  have  of  it  (Luke  xvi,  1-13)  has  evidently  been 

1  Matt,  xiii,  24-30.  6  Matt,  xviii,  1 2. 

2  Matt,  xxiv,  43.  6  Matt,  xxv,  14-30. 

3  Matt,  xiii,  44.  7  Matt,  xxv,  1-13. 

4  Matt,  xiii,  45-46.  8  Matt,  xxii,  1-14. 


106  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

worked  over  from  verse  10  onwards  by  puzzled  theo- 
logians, who  could  not  edit  away  its  apparent  meaning, 
and  yet  were  aghast  at  it.  In  that  story  a  thief  is 
commended, — not,  indeed,  for  his  theft,  but  for  his 
alertness  and  skill  in  adapting  his  circumstances  to  his 
needs. 

This  is  but  an  exceptionally  glaring  proof  of  my  conten- 
tion as  to  the  meaning  of  the  series  of  stories  which  I  shall 
venture  to  call  the  Efficiency  Parables.  These  have 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  salvation  in  a  life  after 
death,  with  correctness  of  theological  belief,  or  even  with 
moral  character,  in  the  ordinary  and  limited  sense  of  that 
phrase.  The  five  foolish  virgins  are  not  represented  as 
believing  more  or  less  than  the  wise,  or  as  being  morally 
inferior  to  them.  Their  folly  consists  in  their  unreadiness, 
their  failure  to  prepare  for  the  call  of  opportunity  or  to 
anticipate  the  circumstances  with  which  they  will  have  to 
cope.  The  unjust  steward  is  commended,  "because  he 
had  done  wisely:  for  the  sons  of  this  age  are  for  their  own 
generation  wiser  than  the  sons  of  tlte  light." 

Jesus,  like  every  practical  reformer,  encountered  the 
disheartening  fact  that  good  people  are  often  good  for 
nothing.  They  are  ineffectual;  they  sit  apathetically 
waiting  for  the  law  of  righteousness  to  execute  itself. 
They  will  not  combine  with  others,  they  will  not  organize 
the  forces  in  men  and  things  which  must  be  marshalled 
before  victory  can  be  attained.  The  sons  of  this  age  are 
indeed  wiser.  Who  that  has  sought  to  overthrow  any 
concrete  evil  has  not  learned  to  wonder  at  and  to  respect 
the  never-sleeping  vigilance  of  those  who,  profiting  by 
the  evil,  desire  its  continuance?  The  white  slave  traffic, 
the  liquor  interest,  the  exploiters  of  child  labour,  the 
capitalistic  opposers  of  the  just  claims  of  the  working- 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  107 

class, — all  these  seem  to  be  hydra-headed  and  argus-eyed. 
No  chance  for  a  successful  coup  ever  eludes  them.  Their 
grasp  is  upon  all  our  political  and  municipal  machinery. 
Their  emissaries  are  to  be  found  at  every  strategical 
point.  If  at  long  intervals  the  far  more  numerous  forces 
of  good  are  successfully  organized  against  them,  they 
know  that  they  have  but  to  bide  their  time  until  the  next 
election,  or  the  next  lock-out,  meantime  judiciously  dis- 
tributing backsheesh  and  raising  sham  issues  to  divert 
the  public  attention  from  themselves  and  their  de- 
signs. 

This,  then,  is  the  excellent  foppery  of  the  world, — 
that  they  who  believe  in  the  good  leave  it  to  come  of 
itself,  superstitiously  trusting  the  blind  forces  of  nature 
to  give  them  a  victory  they  "have  done  naught  to  earn"; 
whereas  all  the  powers  of  darkness,  with  perception 
sharpened  by  self-interest,  count  upon  no  effect  unless 
they  have  with  deadly  efficiency  marshalled  the  natural 
causes  that  cannot  fail  to  bring  it  about.  The  lesson  that 
Jesus  read  to  his  contemporaries  has  to  be  learned  over 
again,  in  sorrow  and  disillusionment,  by  the  reformers  of 
every  new  generation. 

But  Jesus,  as  I  have  said,  is  as  little  a  pessimist  as  he  is 
a  sentimental  optimist.  He  sees  where  the  strength  of 
evil  lies, — in  the  never-wearying  vigilance  of  those  who 
make  evil  their  good.  But  he  also  sees  that  the  forces 
of  the  world  are  ready  to  wait  upon  the  will  of  those  who 
seek  justice  and  righteousness,  as  soon  as  they  comply 
with  the  conditions  that  inhere  in  the  eternal  order  of 
things. 

We  miss  the  whole  point  of  the  great  parable  of  the 
Talents  if  we  fail  to  see  that  its  lesson  is  for  the  man 
with  the  one  talent.  The  reason,  says  Jesus  in  effect, 


108  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

why  the  world  is  governed  by  a  haughty  and  brutal 
aristocracy  in  Church  and  State,  is  not  because  that 
aristocracy  consists  of  persons  whose  ability  is  to  that  of 
average  mankind  as  five  to  one  or  as  two  to  one.  It  is 
simply  because  the  mass  fails  to  make  use  of  such  natural 
endowments  as  it  does  possess.  This  is  the  secret  of 
democracy,  which  consists  essentially  in  an  appeal  to  the 
uncommon  possibilities  of  the  common  man.  The 
preaching  of  the  will  to  power  as  a  doctrine  for  aristocrats 
and  supermen  is  from  this  point  of  view  a  serious  mis- 
take, for  it  may  perchance  be  overheard  by  the  com- 
monalty. When  the  poorly  gifted  realize  that  ten  men 
possessing  one  talent  each  are  stronger  than  any  one 
man  with  five  talents,  we  may  see  a  democratic  assertion 
of  the  will  to  power,  which  will  make  a  compendious  end 
of  all  the  tyrannies, .  religious,  political  and  economic, 
under  which  the  race  is  as  yet  groaning.  What  is  the 
whole  organization  of  the  proletariat  in  our  modern 
nations,  the  formation  of  labour  unions  and  socialist  po- 
litical parties,  but  a  seizing  upon  the  lesson  taught  to 
the  have-nots  and  the  outcasts  nineteen  centuries  ago  by 
the  proletarian  Founder  of  the  Christian  Church?  In 
any  nation,  the  latent  power  of  the  oppressed  majority  is 
necessarily  greater  than  that  of  the  oppressing  minority. 
In  this  ultimate  sense  it  may  be  said  that  every  people 
gets  the  government  it  deserves.  But  commonly  the 
majority  sleeps  or  permits  itself  to  be  blinded  to  its  true 
interests  by  the  crafts  and  wiles  of  its  exploiters.  Yet 
even  to-day  the  great  awakening  is  in  process.  Every- 
where the  man  with  the  one  talent  is  unwrapping  it  from 
the  napkin  in  which  he  had  hidden  it  in  the  earth,  and  is 
pooling  it  with  the  single  talents  of  his  neighbours.  The 
triumph  of  democracy  throughout  the  world  which  will 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  109 

thus  be  brought  about  will  be  one  expression  of  the 
triumph  of  Jesus  Christ;  for  it  will  be  effected  by  an 
application  of  his  teaching. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  when  Jesus  recognizes  the  moral 
indifference  of  nature,  he  passes  no  ethical  judgment  upon 
the  law  that  he  detects.  He  merely  states  the  fact,  with- 
out pausing  to  justify  or  condemn  it.  The  sun,  he  tells 
us,  shines  on  the  just  and  the  unjust;  the  rain  falls  upon 
the  evil  and  upon  the  good.  To  him  that  hath  shall  be 
given;  therefore  (he  implies),  see  that  you  have,  in  order 
that  you  may  have  more.  He  does  not  say  that  this  law 
of  nature  is  ideally  just.  He  leaves  open  the  question 
whether  the  world-order  may  not  be  anti-human  and 
inhuman.  Like  a  modern  man  of  science,  he  seeks  to 
define  precisely  the  conditions  under  which  the  game  of 
life  must  be  played.  He  denies  utterly  the  naive  moral 
theology  of  the  early  Jews,  who  thought  that  compliance 
with  the  law  of  righteousness  on  the  part  of  individuals 
was  an  infallible  means  to  success.  He  would  have 
laughed  to  scorn  that  childlike  psalmist  who  said,  "I 
have  been  young,  and  now  am  old;  yet  have  I  not  seen  the 
righteous  forsaken,  nor  his  seed  begging  their  bread."  l 
Such  a  doctrine  he  would  rightly  have  regarded  as  the 
essence  of  superstition.  Matthew  Arnold  has  put  the 
truth  into  lines  that  seem  but  a  paraphrase  of  the. 
words  of  Jesus: — 

Streams  will  not  curb  their  pride 

The  just  man  not  to  entomb, 
Nor  lightnings  go  aside 

To  leave  his  virtues  room; 
Nor  is  that  wind  less  rough  that  blows  a  good  man's  barge. 

1  Ps.  xxxvii,  25. 


no  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

Nature,  with  equal  mind, 

Sees  all  her  sons  at  play, — 
Sees  man  control  the  wind, 

The  wind  sweep  man  away, — 
Allows  the  proudly  riding  and  the  foundering  bark.1 

This  is  a  stern  teaching;  yet  the  truth,  however  rigorous 
it  seem,  is  more  precious  than  any  flattering  illusion. 
Nobody  will  discuss  whether  the  outward  order  of  things 
is  moral  or  immoral,  unless  he  is  still  slumbering  in  the 
dreamland  of  anthropomorphism.  If  we  read  the  order 
of  laws  and  events  in  the  world  as  the  expression  of  a 
personal  will,  we  shall  have  to  appraise  it  in  ethical 
terms.  We  then  shall  find  ourselves  involved  in  per- 
petual doubt  as  to  whether  the  will  it  expresses  is  divine 
or  diabolical.  We  cut  away  the  ground,  however,  from 
this  idle  controversy  by  recognizing  the  impersonality, 
and  consequently  the  non-morality,  of  the  outward  order 
of  things.  The  world  with  its  laws  is  neither  moral  nor 
immoral,  and  places  no  handicap  either  upon  morality  or 
immorality.  The  only  valid  faith  is  that  which  accepts 
this  fact,  and  does  not  try  to  blink  it  or  to  soften  the 
harshness  of  its  implications. 

But  it  is  precisely  this  indifference,  this  impartiality, 
of  the  universe,  which  gives  the  opportunity  for  the  eth- 
ical will  to  embody  itself.  If  nature  were  anti-moral, 
if  the  dice  were  loaded  in  favour  of  evil,  the  cause  of 
righteousness  would  be  foredoomed  to  failure.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  world-order  foreordained  the  victory  of 
right,  then  right  would  be  but  another  name  for  cunning 
prudence  and  self-interest,  and  the  nobility  of  virtue 
would  surcease.  Because  nature  is  impartial,  the  re- 

1  Arnold,  Empedodes  on  Etna. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  ill 

sponsibility  lies  upon  man  to  create  the  righteous  order 
that  he  dreams  of,  and,  in  labouring  for  it,  to  create 
himself  into  something  nobler  than  his  original  condition. 

Alongside  of  the  group  of  stories  which  preach  the 
doctrine  I  have  just  elaborated,  and  which  I  have  called 
for  convenience  the  Efficiency  Parables,  lies  another 
series,  which  may  be  termed  for  distinction  the  Ethical 
Parables.  Under  this  heading  fall  all  those  beautiful 
tales  preserved  in  Luke,  but  omitted  from  Matthew 
because,  as  we  have  seen,  they  preach  a  universalist 
doctrine  to  which  that  evangelist  was  opposed.  It  was 
early  believed  that  such  characters  as  Lazarus  and  the 
Prodigal  Son  represented  the  Gentile  nations,  the  Rich 
Man  of  the  Lazarus  story  and  the  Elder  Brother  of  the 
Prodigal  standing  for  the  Jews.  If  this  interpretation 
rightly  seizes  the  thought  of  the  narrator,  it  only  throws 
into  a  still  finer  light  the  marvellous  art  of  the  charac- 
terization. In  the  case  of  the  story  of  the  Good  Samar- 
itan, there  can  be  no  question  whatever  as  to  the  purport. 
The  greater  nobility  of  the  despised  foreigner  is  thrust 
into  the  teeth  of  the  narrow  and  race-proud  Jew,  and  the 
ancient  doctrine  of  duty  to  one's  neighbour  undergoes  a 
broadening  which  at  one  stroke  purges  it  of  hateful  ex- 
clusiveness. 

The  literature  of  the  world  does  not  contain  the 
artistic  equal  of  the  tale  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  In  twenty- 
two  short  verses  are  presented  to  us  three  perfectly 
depicted  and  marvellously  contrasted  types  of  character. 
Many  conventional  valuations  are  revalued  in  the  pure 
white  light  of  its  ethical  vision.  With  what  skill  is 
brought  out  the  inward  vileness  of  the  respectable  elder 
brother,  whose  ungenerous  spirit  cared  only  for  favours 
received,  and  meted  out  its  curmudgeonly  loyalty  in 


112  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

strict  proportion  to  the  amount  of  its  rewards!  How 
finely  is  this  contrasted  with  the  open-hearted  generosity 
of  the  father, — willing,  indeed,  to  let  the  wayward  child 
dree  his  weird;  resigned,  though  with  grief,  to  the  in- 
evitableness  of  the  bitter  price  he  must  pay  for  his 
experience;  but  ready  to  pour  out  his  unstinted  bene- 
volence the  moment  there  is  any  expression  of  penitence 
on  the  prodigal's  part. 

The  inner  secret  of  the  democratic  faith  of  Jesus, 
however,  is  his  recognition  of  the  hidden  fineness  even  of 
vile  persons.  The  blackguard  prodigal  had  indeed  been 
basely  ungrateful  to  his  father,  and  had  devoured  that 
father's  living  with  harlots.  Yet  he  it  is  who  exhibits  a 
truly  magnificent  gleam  of  character  the  moment  he 
comes  to  himself.  The  faith  of  democracy  is  that  the 
real  self,  to  which  any  man  comes  when  his  eyes  are 
truly  opened  and  he  sees  realities  as  they  are,  is  always  a 
noble  and  splendid  self,  capable  of  all  justice,  of  every 
generosity  and  every  renunciation.  This  is  the  self  which 
in  the  prodigal  rises  to  the  height  of  the  sentiment,  "I 
have  sinned  against  heaven  and  in  thy  sight;  I  am  no 
more  worthy  to  be  called  thy  son.  Make  me  as  one  of 
thy  hired  servants."  It  is  the  same  self  which  in  the 
father  overflows  in  the  generosity  that  gives  to  the  re- 
turned wanderer  the  best  robe,  places  the  ring  on  his 
finger  and  the  shoes  on  his  feet,  and  kills  for  him  the 
fatted  calf;  the  same  which,  in  the  parable  of  the  La- 
bourers in  the  Vineyard,  gives  magnanimously  "unto 
this  last"  even  as  unto  those  who  have  toiled  all  the  day: 
taking  their  need,  not  their  desert,  as  the  measure  of 
what  they  are  to  receive. 

In  the  literary  miracle  of  the  parable  of  the  Pharisee 
and  the  Publican,  this  conviction  of  the  inherent  fineness 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  113 

of  humanity  blasts  the  dark  idolatry  of  self  in  the  irre- 
proachable religious  leader  with  the  same  lightning  that 
reveals  the  unsuspected  nobility  of  the  publican.  Jesus 
does  not  need  to  preach  or  moralize — he  can  destroy  with 
description  and  create  with  disclosure.  Nor  can  we 
cease  to  wonder  at  the  utter  freedom  from  sentimentality 
which  takes  for  its  example  not  a  character  that  is  falsely 
condemned  by  conventional  standards,  but  one  that  is 
truly  censurable  according  to  genuinely  ethical  canons. 
The  publican,  who  for  hire  had  made  himself  the  instru- 
ment of  foreign  tyranny  over  his  compatriots,  and  who 
had  swindled  both  his  employers  and  his  victims  into 
the  bargain,  is  a  man  whom  every  disinterested  onlooker 
would  rightly  dislike.  Yet,  according  to  Jesus,  when 
even  he  comes  to  his  true  self,  he  finds  that  it  is  a  self 
which  condemns  his  record.  By  uttering  the  prayer 
"  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner,"  the  publican  identifies 
himself  with  the  justice  whose  verdict  is  against  him. 
Emerson  held  the  conviction  that  Jesus  was  the  only 
man  in  all  history  who  had  justly  estimated  the  greatness 
of  man.1  This  tribute  to  the  Galilean  has  been  con- 
demned as  sentimental.  In  associating  myself  with  it,  I 
would  ask  the  critics  how  otherwise  they  can  explain  the 
facts  'to  which  I  have  pointed.  Here  is  the  insight  that 
pierces  through  the  rags  and  the  vileness  to  the  hidden 
royalty.  We  do  not  read  it  into  the  Gospels;  there  it  is: 
and  where  else  shall  we  find  it?  Not  in  the  aristocratic 
satires  of  Plato  upon  democracy;  not  in  Aristotle's  ac- 
ceptance of  slavery  as  a  part  of  the  order  of  nature;  not 
in  the  Buddhist  condemnation  of  all  individualized  ex- 
istence as  an  incurable  evil  to  be  fled  from;  not  in  the 

1  Divinity  College  Address.    Concord  edit,  of  Emerson,  vol.  i,  p.  1 28. 
(Houghton,  Mifflin.) 


114  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

abstract  and  theoretical  humanitarianism  of  the  Roman 
jurists.  This  is  an  original  contribution  by  Jesus  to  the 
moral  insight  of  the  world.  In  the  light  of  it,  and  by 
virtue  of  our  grudging  and  partial  acceptance  of  it, 
democracies  have  at  last  begun  to  exist,  slavery  is  begin- 
ning to  be  abolished  in  fact  as  well  as  name,  and  the 
moral  personality  of  woman  to  be  recognized  in  law  and 
social  institutions. 

Consistent  with  this  doctrine  of  the  greatness  of  man 
is  the  teaching  of  Jesus  that  the  institution  of  the  sab- 
bath, like  all  the  rest  of  the  machinery  of  religion, 
existed  for  man's  sake,  that  man  was  lord  of  it  and  could 
dispense  himself  from  the  observance  of  its  regulations 
whenever  this  was  contrary  to  its  main  end.  I  need  not 
repeat  the  argument  briefly  outlined  in  Chapter  II,1 
tending  to  show  that  the  words  "The  son  of  man  is  lord 
also  of  the  sabbath,"  mean  "Man  is  lord  of  the  sabbath." 

It  is  from  such  fragmentary  teachings  (which  cannot 
have  been  invented  by  men  who  believed  the  contrary) 
that  one  gradually  discerns  the  true  lineaments  of  the 
founder  of  Christianity.  By  his  immediate  followers  he 
was  misunderstood,  and  the  misunderstanding  grew 
wider  and  deeper  in  the  ages  that  followed.  Only  by 
means  of  a  minute  analysis  of  the  ancient  record  and  a 
close  discrimination  between  its  parts  can  any  vision  of 
the  truth  now  be  attained.  The  critical  principle,  how- 
ever, by  which  this  procedure  is  justified  is  a  simple  one, 
and  one  that  cannot,  I  think,  be  invalidated:  Search  your 
evangelist  to  find  out  what  special  axe  he  wishes  to  grind. 
Having  done  this,  examine  all  the  sayings  he  records 
which  are  flatly  contradictory  of  the  theory  he  is  seeking 
to  prove.  You  then  may  know  with  certainty  that  he 

1  Ante,  p.  19,  note. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  115 

did  not  invent  these,  and  that  the  tradition  affirming  their 
authenticity  must  in  his  time  have  been  so  well  estab- 
lished that  he  dared  not  defy  it  by  modifying  them. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  these  indisputably 
authentic  traditions  is  the  saying  ascribed  by  Mark  and 
Luke  to  Jesus  in  reply  to  the  question  of  the  rich  young 
man,  "Good  Master,  what  shall  I  do  that  I  may  inherit 
eternal  life?  "  Jesus  replies,  "Why  callest  thou  me  good? 
none  is  good  save  one,  even  God."  So  the  incident  is 
introduced  by  Mark,  who  at  this  point  is  accurately 
followed  by  Luke.1  Now  there  is  no  possibility  of  inter- 
preting the  reply  of  Jesus  otherwise  than  as  a  repudiation 
of  the  epithet  "good,"  on  the  ground  that  he  was  not 
God,  and  consequently  had  no  right  to  be  invested  with 
the  attributes  of  God.  One  ancient  authority  reads, 
"Call  thou  not  me  good";  and  this  is  the  unmistakable 
meaning  of  the  answer  as  given  by  Mark  and  Luke. 
That  these  words  were  from  a  very  early  period  felt  by 
the  Church  to  be  a  stumbling-block  is  evidenced  by  the 
utter  distortion  which  they  have  received  in  the  first 
Gospel.  Matthew  or  some  later  scribe  has,  with  perverse 
ingenuity,  worked  over  the  question  and  answer  as 
follows: 

And  behold,  one  came  to  him  and  said,  Master,  what  good 
thing  shall  I  do  that  I  may  have  eternal  life?  And  he  said 
unto  him,  Why  askest  thou  me  concerning  that  which  is 
good?  One  there  is  who  is  good:  but  if  thou  wouldst  enter 
into  life,  keep  the  commandments.2 

This  Matthaean  adaptation,  which  makes  both  the 
questions  childish,  is  an  example  of  the  clumsiness  with 

1  Mark  x,  17  ff.,  Luke  xviii,  18  ff.  2  Matt,  xix,  16-17. 


Il6  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

which  it  was  sometimes  attempted  to  force  the  early 
tradition  into  conformity  with  later  doctrinal  develop- 
ments. The  fourth  Gospel,  it  need  scarcely  be  said,  omits 
the  incident  altogether;  and  indeed  it  is  remarkable  that 
the  original  form  should  have  been  preserved  in  the 
second  and  third  Gospels.  The  manly  modesty  it  dis- 
plays on  the  part  of  Jesus  is  as  incompatible  with  the 
notion  that  he  claimed  to  be  the  Jewish  Messiah  as  with 
the  idea  that  he  was  consciously  an  incarnation  of  the 
personal  creator  of  the  world.  Modesty  does  not  demand 
that  a  man  shall  disclaim  characteristics  essential  to  the 
office  that  he  bears.  For  example,  one  would  not  expect 
an  attorney-general  to  say,  "Do  not  call  me  a  lawyer." 
It  would  have  been  just  such  bathos  for  one  claiming 
Jewish  Messiahship  to  say,  "Why  callest  thou  me  good? " 
So  obvious  is  the  incongruity  between  this  saying  and 
the  orthodox  doctrine  of  Christ's  divinity  that  I  doubt 
whether  any  theologian  has  ever  sought  to  grapple  with 
it.  It  is  the  habit  of  paraphrasts  and  commentators  to 
dodge  the  problem  by  palpable  evasions  or  "wres tings  of 
scripture."  x  Once,  anxious  to  read  orthodox  expositions 
of  this  passage,  I  searched  for  hours  in  the  London 
Library  to  find  sermons  on  it.  I  hunted  through  hun- 
dreds of  volumes,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  dating  from 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  to  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth;  but  I  could  not  find  a  single  sermon  on  the 
text,  "Why  callest  thou  me  good?"  This  is  significant 
of  the  conspiracy  of  silence  which  has  concealed  the  con- 

1  Witness  the  suggestio  falsi  in  the  scholium  of  Richard  Baxter  on 
Matt,  xix,  17  (which  in  the  version  of  1611  had  the  same  reading  as  at 
Mark  x,  17) :  "Thou  knowest  not  how  great  a  word  thou  speakest  of  me, 
when  thou  callest  me  Good:  Goodness  is  God's  Name  and  Attribute:  There 
is  none  Essentially,  Absolutely,  and  most  perfectly  Good  but  God." — 
Baxter's  Paraphrase  on  the  New  Testament,  edition  of  1701. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  117 

flict  between  the  original  tradition  and  the  later  doctrine 
of  the  Church. 

That  original  tradition,  as  preserved  in  and  capable 
of  being  extracted  from  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  justifies 
the  following  conclusions: — 

(1)  That  Jesus  was  not  conscious  of  any  difference  of 
nature  between  himself  and  other  men;  he  did  not  claim 
to  be  in  any  sense  supernatural  or  supernormal. 

(2)  He  was  a  free  thinker,  appealing  away  from  pre- 
scription and  authority  to  the  independent  moral  judg- 
ment of  every  man.    The  working  maxim  of  his  life  was, 
"Why  even  of  yourselves  judge  ye  not  what  is  right?" 

(3)  Whatever  may  have  been  his  power  over  nervous 
diseases  and  mental  disturbances,  he  was  no  miracle- 
monger.     "No  sign,"  he  emphatically  said,  "shall  be 
given  to  this  generation."    By  his  own  testimony,  the 
cures  that  he  effected  were  identical  in  kind  with  those 
performed  by  the  ordinary  Jewish  exorcist.1    The  in- 
credibility of  the  mass  of  the  miracle  stories  is  demon- 
strated by  the  fact  that  the  effect  of  the  reputation  ac- 
quired by  Jesus  was  to  make  his  immediate  relatives 
think  him  insane.2    This  is  a  curious  impression  to  be 
produced  by  a  man  healing  incurable  diseases  and  re- 
storing lunatics  to  sanity. 

(4)  Jesus  was  avowedly  a  disbeliever  in  special  prov- 
idences, and  a  believer  in  the  doctrine  of  struggle  for 
existence  and  survival  by  adaptation  to  environmental 
exigency. 

(5)  He  was  so  far  from  believing  (with  St.  Augustine 

1Matt.  xii,  27:  "And  if  I  by  Beelzebub  cast  out  devils,  by  whom  do 
your  sons  cast  them  out  ?  therefore  shall  they  be  your  judges." 

2  Mark  iii,  21:  "And  when  his  friends  heard  it,  they  went  out  to  lay 
hold  on  him:  for  they  said,  He  is  beside  himself." 


Ii8  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

and  the  Church  generally)  in  the  total  depravity  of 
mankind  and  the  necessity  for  miraculous  regeneration, 
that  he  was  for  ever  insisting  on  the  inherent  capacity  of 
man  himself  to  rise  to  the  finest  heights  of  character  and 
the  truest  nobility  of  conduct. 

(6)  The  doctrines  of  the  Church  concerning  the  unique 
nature  and  the  supernatural  functions  of  Jesus  are 
demonstrably  founded  not  upon  the  original  tradition, 
but  upon  later  accretions.  This  is  especially  the  case  in 
regard  to  the  legends  of  his  birth  and  resurrection. 

Thus  fundamentally  different  is  the  true  Jesus  from  the 
Christ  of  ecclesiastical  tradition.  What  then  is  to  be  his 
place  in  the  religion  of  the  present  and  the  future?  Are 
we  to  say,  as  so  many  are  saying  in  effect,  with  the  doctor 
in  Tennyson's  poem,  "The  good  Lord  Jesus  has  had  his 
day  "?  Or  may  we  endorse  the  reply  of  the  nurse,  "Had? 
Has  it  come?  It  has  only  dawned:  it  will  come  by  and 
by."  l  Despite  the  necessary  brevity  of  my  treatment  of 
the  subject,  I  hope  I  have  said  enough  to  indicate  and  to 
justify  my  own  conviction  that  the  nurse's  words  are 
nearer  to  the  truth  than  those  of  the  blase  doctor.  The 
coming  of  the  day  of  Jesus  will  not  be  by  the  conversion  of 
the  world  to  the  orthodox  dogmas,  but  by  a  great  ethical 
and  spiritual  renewal. 

When  men  cease  to  follow  blindly  the  dictates  of 
custom  and  convention:  when  they  are  able  to  pierce 
through  catchwords  to  realities:  when  they  trust  their 
independent  moral  judgment:  when  they  see  character 
and  conduct  as  more  real  and  important  than  the  exter- 
nals of  life:  when  they  are  ready  to  live  by  and  to  die  for 
their  ideals:  then  his  day  will  come. 

1  Tennyson,  In  the  Children's  Hospital. 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  119 

When  men  forgive  the  injuries  committed  against 
them  before  presuming  to  ask  forgiveness  of  their  own 
offences:  when  the  motive  of  personal  gain  has  been 
transcended,  and  all  men  live  for  the  sake  of  universal 
standards  of  justice,  love  and  truth,  and  for  the  incarna- 
tion of  these  in  the  common  life:  when  they  combine  the 
zest  and  spontaneity  of  childhood  with  the  courageous 
wisdom  of  maturity:  when  they  are  efficiently  and  not 
idly  good:  then  his  day  will  come. 

When,  through  the  spread  of  knowledge  and  the 
purification  of  motives,  there  shall  cease  to  be  occasion 
for  divorce :  when  there  is  victory  over  lust  and  unchaste 
desire:  when  every  life  that  comes  into  the  world  is  cer- 
tain to  be  welcomed,  loved,  cherished  and  respected: 
when  there  is  neither  asceticism  nor  excess  in  eating  and 
drinking:  when  class  prejudice  and  race  distinctions  and 
all  uncharitableness  are  done  away:  then  his  day  will 
come. 

When  men  become  so  fine  in  their  moral  quality  that 
their  very  presence  puts  evildoers  to  shame  (as  Jesus  put 
to  shame  the  stony-hearted  pedants  who  sought  his 
judgment  on  the  woman  taken  in  sin) :  when  we  have  the 
authentic  sign  of  godship  that  he  displayed — the  power 
to  quicken  by  our  personal  radiance  the  spiritual  life 
in  others:  then  his  day  will  come. 

When  priests  no  longer  pervert  his  teaching  and  insult 
humanity  by  declaring  it  impotent  to  save  itself,  and  by 
pretending  through  magic  to  secure  to  men  pardon  and 
strength  from  an  outside  God:  then  his  day  will  come. 

When  monarchies  and  aristocracies,  and  all  laws  and 
ordinances  inconsistent  with  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people,  are  done  away;  when  poverty  and  wealth  no 
longer  militate  against  the  exercise  of  those  powers  of 


120  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

service  to  the  good  of  all  through  which  alone  men  can 
find  their  personal  salvation:  then  his  day  will  come. 

When  perfect  law  secures  perfect  liberty:  when  every 
man  is  a  light  to  himself  and  an  inspiration  to  others: 
then  his  day  will  come. 

In  the  measure  in  which  Christianity  succeeded,  it 
deserved  to  succeed,  because  its  founder  had  made  an 
original  and  indispensable  contribution  to  the  spiritual 
treasure  of  humanity.  Not  that  the  Christian  message 
alone  is  sufficient  for  our  salvation.  At  vital  points  it 
needs  to  be  supplemented  by  the  wisdom  and  insight  of 
other  teachers,  whom  future  piety  will  unquestionably 
place  on  the  same  plane  with  the  prophet  of  Nazareth. 
Jesus  is  unique  only  in  the  sense  in  which  every  individual 
is  unique.  Each  man  represents  an  unprecedented  and 
induplicable  synthesis  of  the  elements  of  personality. 
The  claim  that  Jesus  was  different  in  kind  from  the  rest 
of  the  human  race  will  be  abandoned.  But  its  abandon- 
ment is  a  gain  and  not  a  loss,  since  the  maintenance  of 
the  claim  is  less  of  an  honour  to  him  than  a  depressing  and 
discouraging  depreciation  of  humanity.  It  is  a  gain  to 
realize  that  what  this  man  was  and  did  is  an  expression 
of  what  is  possible  for  other  men,  without  miraculous  or 
supernatural  aid.  By  every  shining  example  of  what  man 
has  achieved,  men  are  challenged  to  an  emulation  which 
calls  into  action  their  highest  powers.  They  are  crushed, 
however,  and  robbed  of  the  most  effectual  incentive  to 
self -regeneration,  by  the  doctrine  that  true  goodness  and 
true  wisdom  are  alien  to  human  nature  and  can  only  be 
injected  into  it  from  without  by  a  special  operation  of 
transcendent  grace.  If  Jesus  was  right  in  that  inter- 
pretation of  humanity  which  he  set  forth  in  his  tales  of 
the  Publican  and  the  Prodigal  Son,  we  need  no  myths  and 


THE  RE-DISCOVERY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  121 

legends  to  account  for  the  manifestation  of  goodness  and 
greatness  by  human  beings,  since  these  are  the  attributes 
of  every  man's  true  self.  Rather,  as  I  have  elsewhere 
remarked,  it  is  declensions  from  this  standard  that  need 
to  be  accounted  for.1 

The  piety  which  is  consistent  with  free  rationality  and 
with  the  moral  autonomy  of  mankind,  will  not  seek  to 
express  its  reverence  for  Jesus  by  imitation  of  the  out- 
ward incidents  of  his  career.  The  notion  of  "the  imita- 
tion of  Christ"  has  in  it  something  of  slavishness.  The 
worthy  following  of  any  great  leader  consists  in  acting 
from  his  principles  and  in  his  spirit;  and,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  cardinal  principle  with  Jesus  was  the  defiance  of 
precedent  and  the  bringing  of  independent  and  untram- 
melled moral  judgment  to  bear  upon  the  circumstances 
that  confronted  him.  He  acted  instinctively  upon  Kant's 
principle,  that  "Imitation  has  no  place  in  morals."  We 
can  never  transcend  his  rule  of  mutuality  and  his  rever- 
ence for  the  unconditional  worth  of  every  human  soul. 
But,  seeing  that  the  circumstances  in  which  ethical 
principles  have  to  be  applied  are  always  different,  we 
may  not  govern  the  moral  life  by  precedent.  If  we  do, 
we  fall  short  both  of  the  demand  of  conscience  and  of  the 
example  of  Jesus.  Since  he  imitated  nobody,  the  only 
true  loyalty  to  him  is  to  be  original  and  to  abstain  from 
imitating  even  him.  We  must  not  abdicate  the  sover- 
eignty that  he  ascribes  to  us  in  bidding  us  judge  for  our- 
selves what  is  right.  The  ordinary  Christian  practice  of 
looking  to  Jesus  is  inconsistent  with  this  demand.  Rather 
we  should  look  with  him,  first  to  the  sources  of  spiritual 
strength  and  moral  insight,  and  then  at  the  world  of  facts, 
which  challenges  us  to  redemptive  labour  by  reason  of  its 

1  See  my  Criticisms  of  Lije,  p.  157.    (Houghton,  Mifflin:  1915.) 


122  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

clash  with  those  righteous  laws  which  are  the  structural 
principles  of  our  nature. 

The  true  resurrection  of  Jesus  consists  in  the  appropria- 
tion of  his  long-forgotten  spirit  and  principles.  Just  as 
the  spirit  of  Aristotle  has  risen  again  from  the  dead  in  the 
minds  and  wills,  the  purpose  and  method  of  our  modern 
men  of  science,  so  that  of  Jesus  is  rising  again  among 
those  who  are  seeking  to  establish  a  reign  of  righteous- 
ness based  on  the  principles  of  democracy  and  freedom  of 
thought.  This  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  hackneyed  say- 
ing that  there  is  more  true  Christianity  outside  the 
Churches  than  within  them.  Within  the  Churches  we  too 
often  find  the  very  temper  against  which  his  life  was  a 
protest:  the  temper  of  authoritarianism,  of  distrust  of 
human  nature,  and  of  superstitious  faith  in  the  overruling 
of  the  natural  order  to  moral  ends  by  a  power  external  to 
humanity.  Yet  even  into  the  Churches  the  spirit  of 
Jesus,  risen  again  in  the  innovators,  the  free  thinkers,  and 
the  social  idealists  of  the  modern  world,  is  returning. 
Thus  we  look  not  in  vain  for  the  resurrection  of  the  dead, 
and  for  the  life  of  the  world  to  come — by  virtue  of  that 
resurrection.  It  is  in  the  very  spirit  of  Jesus  that  the 
trammels  of  the  enslaving  doctrine  which  has  hitherto 
borne  his  name  are  being  burst.  The  world  is  reaching 
forward  to  a  new  religious  synthesis,  in  which,  for  the 
first  time,  the  life-giving  principles  which  he  taught  will 
bear  their  legitimate  fruits,  and  demonstrate  their  af- 
finity with  the  good  which  has  come  to  us  through  other 
movements  of  the  human  spirit  than  that  which  orig- 
inated with  him. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  RESURRECTION  OJF   SOCRATES 

IN  the  preceding  chapters  I  have  advanced  the  view 
that  one  of  the  chief  developments  of  religion  will  con- 
sist in  placing  other  personalities  on  the  plane  with 
Jesus  Christ.  This  does  not  mean  that  he  will  be  rele- 
gated from  the  first  place  to  an  inferior  one,  but  it  does 
mean  that  he  will  cease  to  be  regarded  as  the  monopolist 
of  the  supreme  religious  function  of  saviour.  I  would 
not  seek  to  disguise  from  the  reader  how  intensely  radical 
is  the  revolution  involved  in  this  change  of  attitude.  As 
compared  with  it,  all  the  modifications  introduced  of  late 
years  into  the  Churches  are  insignificant.  Theological 
liberalism  has  thus  far  consisted  in  the  abandonment  of  a 
number  of  dogmas  and  in  a  freer  interpretation  of  those 
retained;  but  not  in  any  Church  has  there  yet  been  a 
conscious  and  deliberate  placing  of  other  men  in  the  same 
category  with  Jesus. 

It  has  been  maintained  by  some  thinkers  that  the 
Church  cannot  evolve  beyond  the  point  of  exclusive 
devotion  to  the  personality  of  Christ.  According  to  these 
critics,  if  the  Church  ceased  to  be  Christocentric,  it 
would  lose  its  identity.  This  opinion  seems  to  me 
groundless.  I  hold  that  the  Church  could  modify  its 
view  of  the  nature  and  offices  of  Christ,  and  could  come 
to  regard  human  salvation  as  the  work  of  many  persons 
instead  of  one,  without  making  such  a  breach  with  the 
past  as  to  destroy  its  identity  and  continuity.  Whether 
123 


124  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

it  will  be  able  in  practice  to  effect  this  change  remains  to 
be  seen.  My  present  contention  is  that  the  change  is 
desirable  and  theoretically  possible.  A  nation  does  not 
lose  its  identity  when  it  changes  its  form  of  government. 
It  can  swing  from  monarchy  to  republicanism,  from 
aristocracy  to  democracy,  and  still  remain  the  same 
nation,  the  same  State.  I  maintain  that  in  religion  we 
can  similarly  change  from  the  monarchical  to  the  demo- 
cratic conception  of  God;  and  it  is  precisely  this  change 
which  is  involved  in  extending  the  idea  of  salvation  in 
such  wise  that  not  only  one,  but  many  persons  shall  be 
recognized  as  having  made  essential  contributions  to  it. 

While  it  will  be  hotly  disputed  whether  others  than 
Jesus  Christ  may  be  looked  upon  as  saviours,  it  for- 
tunately happens  that  we  can  agree  as  to  what  salvation 
is.  It  will  be  admitted  that  the  saved  man  is  he  who  has 
undergone  an  inward  renewal  of  heart  and  will.  The 
attainment  of  virtuous  character  and  its  expression  in 
righteous  conduct  is  salvation.  The  truly  saved  man  is 
he  who  has  lost  his  self-regarding  life  and  has  found  a  life 
that  beats  in  unison  with  impersonal  and  universal  good. 
He  who  no  longer  mistakes  the  material  goods  of  the 
world,  which  are  but  means,  for  the  end  of  life;  he  who 
lives  in  disinterested  principles  and  benevolent  purposes 
that  embrace  the  entire  life  of  the  universe,  is  the  man 
who  has  found  salvation. 

That  this  inward  renewal  is  the  essence  of  redemption 
will  not  be  denied  even  by  those  who  assert  that  the 
attainment  of  endless  life  and  felicity  is  a  necessary  con- 
comitant of  the  process.  For  that  felicity  itself  is  held  to 
consist  in  the  complete  harmonization  of  the  finite  will  of 
man  with  the  infinite  and  perfectly  good  will  of  God.  The 
anticipated  happiness  of  the  immortal  life  is  a  result  of 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  125 

salvation;  but  the  salvation  consists  in  something  other 
than  happiness.  The  beatified  spirit  is  happy  because  it 
is  saved,  not  saved  because  it  is  happy.  The  Christian 
idea  is  not  merely  hedonistic,  however  widespread  may 
be  the  popular  misunderstanding  that  regards  it  as  such. 
Christ's  purpose  was  to  quicken  in  men  a  vital  and 
original  seed  of  the  spiritual  life,  capable  of  fructifying 
in  them  and  communicating  itself  from  them  to  others. 
It  is  a  vulgarization  of  this  idea  to  represent  it  as  designed 
merely  to  ensure  happiness.  Rather  its  purpose  is  to 
produce  a  loyalty  and  an  enthusiasm  which  shall  make 
men  capable  of  forgoing  happiness.  The  typical  Chris- 
tian is  not  the  ecstatically  happy  Salvationist,  but  the 
martyr,  whose  spiritual  life  is  so  deep,  so  real,  and  so 
serene  that  he  counts  misery  and  frustration  insignificant, 
and  is  willing  to  embrace  the  stake  or  the  cross.  To 
speak  of  him  as  happy  involves  a  somewhat  degrading  use 
of  that  ambiguous  term.  He  is  fully  conscious  of  the 
bitterness  of  the  cup,  which  he  prays  may  pass  from  him; 
but  his  salvation  is  testified  by  his  willingness  to  drink 
it  to  the  dregs. 

It  is  further  admitted  on  all  hands  that  that  qualitative 
change  in  which  salvation  consists  may  be  undergone  in 
the  present  life.  Protestant  Christianity,  indeed,  insists 
that  it  must  be — that  unless  a  man  be  saved  on  earth  he 
is  lost  for  ever.  The  Roman  purgatorian  doctrine,  hu- 
maner  in  spirit,  has  been  morally  laxer  in  practice.  Even 
it,  however,  fully  admits  the  possibility  of  complete 
salvation  during  the  earthly  lifetime.  By  the  consent, 
then,  of  all  Christians,  men  are  quickened  here  and  now 
into  that  type  of  character  which  is  the  highest  thing 
that  could  be  attained  even  in  an  immortal  existence. 
It  is  also  conceded  that  the  entire  machinery  of  Chris- 


126  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

tianity  exists  for  the  purpose  of  producing  this  effect  in 
men.  Must  it  not  then  be  acknowledged  that  whoever 
contributes  to  this  change  any  indispensable  element  is  to 
that  extent  a  saviour?  If,  independently  of  the  Christian 
tradition,  any  man  undergoes  a  transformation  identical 
in  its  ethical  results  with  that  which  Christianity  effects, 
it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  change  is  a  salvation,  and  the 
person  responsible  for  it  a  saviour.  Things  which  are 
equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  each  other. 

As  one  instance  of  the  change  of  standpoint  which  I 
anticipate  in  religion,  I  shall  outline  here  the  new  recogni- 
tion which  should  be  given  to  the  personality  and  work  of 
Socrates.  My  contention  is  that  he  has  bequeathed  to 
mankind  a  spirit  and  example,  a  "  method  and  secret," 
which  form  a  necessary  part  of  human  salvation.  He 
stands  for  the  elaborate  development  of  a  principle  which 
is  indeed  embodied  in  the  original  Christian  teaching,  but 
which  is  there  so  little  stressed  that  it  has  been  possible 
for  the  historic  religious  bodies  to  ignore  it  and  to  act  for 
centuries  in  defiance  of  it.  That  principle  is  intellectual 
honesty.  Socrates  lived  and  died  for  freedom  and  fulness 
of  thought.  He  convicted  men  of  intellectual  sin,  just  as 
Jesus  convicted  them  of  moral  sin.  No  less  than  Jesus,  he 
considered  himself  the  emissary  of  a  power  greater  than 
himself;  and  he  had  the  same  high  sense  of  responsibility 
for  the  sacred  mission  entrusted  to  him.  Like  Jesus,  he 
lived  in  poverty,  was  condemned  as  a  blasphemer,  and 
died  a  martyr's  death.  His  spirit,  like  that  of  Jesus,  was 
speedily  eclipsed,  and  is  only  now  rising  into  newness  of 
life. 

The  validity  of  his  title  to  rank  as  a  saviour  is  estab- 
lished, in  the  first  place,  by  his  effect  upon  the  char- 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  127 

acters  of  those  with  whom  he  was  personally  associated. 
Just  as  one  cannot  explain  St.  Paul  without  Jesus,  so  one 
cannot  explain  the  reverence  of  Plato  and  Xenophon  for 
Socrates  without  believing  their  accounts  of  his  exalted 
character.  The  impression  which  he  produced  upon  the 
greatest  and  ablest  men  of  his  time  is  unmistakable  and 
immeasurable.  It  is  further  duplicated  in  the  effect 
which  to  this  day  and  to  all  future  tune  he  is  capable  of 
exercising  upon  all  who  come  into  contact  with  his  spirit 
as  it  lives  and  communicates  itself  through  the  writings  of 
Xenophon  and  Plato.  No  reader  of  the  Apology  can 
doubt  the  proud  contention  of  Socrates,  that  instead  of 
being  a  corrupter  of  young  men,  he  had  been  the  very 
opposite;  he  had  saved  many  from  corruption,  and  had 
been  the  only  restraining  influence  upon  some  who,  after 
leaving  him,  went  to  the  bad.  With  Socrates  as  with 
Jesus,  one  feels  that  the  spirit  is  greater  than  the  letter, 
the  life  more  than  the  doctrine.  We  are  at  once  abashed 
and  exalted  by  the  spiritual  grandeur  of  these  men;  what 
they  are  is  more  than  what  they  say  and  do. 

Of  the  life  of  Socrates  we  have  more  reliable  details 
than  in  the  case  of  Jesus.  It  is  reasonably  certain  that 
he  was  born  in  the  year  470  or  469  B.  C.,  his  father 
Sophroniscus  being  a  sculptor,  his  mother  Phaenarete  a 
midwife.  Tradition  has  it  that  he  worked  at  his  father's 
trade,  though  there  seems  no  reliable  basis  for  the  state- 
ment, made  centuries  later  by  Pausanias,  that  a  group  of 
the  Graces  at  the  entrance  of  the  Acropolis  was  his 
handiwork.  In  the  usual  Athenian  fashion  he  learned 
music,  gymnastic,  geometry,  and  astronomy.  He  was 
early  familiar  with  the  philosophy  and  the  physical 
speculations  current  in  his  time,  but  he  soon  gave  up  the 
habit  of  guessing  at  the  secrets  of  the  external  world, 


128  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

since  he  considered  self-knowledge  of  the  first  importance. 
He  served  as  a  soldier  in  three  campaigns, — at  Potidaea 
in  the  years  from  432  to  429,  at  Delium  in  424,  and  at 
Amphipolis  in  422.  Plato  has  recorded  many  anecdotes 
of  his  courage  and  his  extraordinary  physical  hardihood.1 
To  his  personal  ugliness  we  have  not  only  the  witness  of 
the  traditional  bust,  but  the  anecdotes  of  his  contem- 
poraries 2  and  his  own  witty  references  to  himself.  It 
seems  probable  that  he  was  unhappily  married,  though 
the  gossip  about  Xanthippe  is  unauthenticated.  He 
believed  himself  to  be  divinely  inspired.  Many  are  the 
references  to  the  "daimon"  by  which  at  all  important 
crises  of  his  life  he  was  prompted.  It  is  related  that  on 
one  occasion  he  remained  for  twenty-four  hours  sunk  in 

1  "We  messed  together,  and  I  had  the  opportunity  of  observing  his 
extraordinary  power  of  sustaining  fatigue  and  going  without  food  when 
our  supplies  were  intercepted  in  any  place,  as  will  happen  with  an  army. 
In  the  faculty  of  endurance  he  was  superior  not  only  to  me  but  to  every- 
body; there  was  no  one  to  be  compared  to  him.    Yet  at  a  festival  he  was 
the  only  person  who  had  any  real  powers  of  enjoyment,  and  though  not 
willing  to  drink,  he  could  if  compelled  beat  us  all  at  that;  and  the  most 
wonderful  thing  of  all  was  that  no  human  being  had  ever  seen  Socrates 
drunk.  .  .  .    His  endurance  of  cold  was  also  surprising.    There  was  a 
severe  frost,  for  the  winter  in  that  region  was  really  tremendous,  and 
everybody  else  either  remained  indoors,  or  if  they  went  out  had  on  no 
end  of  clothing,  and  were  well  shod,  and  had  their  feet  swathed  in  felts 
and  fleeces:  in  the  midst  of  this,  Socrates,  with  his  bare  feet  on  the  ice, 
and  in  his  ordinary  dress,  marched  better  than  any  of  the  other  soldiers 
who  had  their  shoes  on,  and  they  looked  daggers  at  him  because  he 
seemed  to  despise  them." — Alcibiades,  in  the  Symposium.     See  also 
Apology  28-29,  Laches  181,  and  Charmides  i. 

2  "  He  is  exactly  like  the  masks  of  Silenus,  which  may  be  seen  sitting 
in  the  statuaries'  shops,  having  pipes  and  flutes  in  their  mouths;  and  they 
are  made  to  open  in  the  middle,  and  there  are  images  of  gods  inside  them. 
I  say  also  that  he  is  like  Marsyas  the  satyr.    You  will  not  deny,  Socrates, 
that  your  face  is  like  that  of  a  satyr." — Symposium  215.    See  also  the 
witty  dialogue  between  Socrates  and  Critobulus  in  Xenophon's  Ban- 
quet, §  5. 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  129 

meditation  and  oblivious  to  the  outer  world.1  In  the 
closing  portion  of  the  speech  at  his  trial  he  argues  that 
his  condemnation  will  certainly  be  a  good,  because  the 
familiar  oracle,  which  had  often  dissuaded  him  from  some 
contemplated  course,  had  set  up  no  opposition  to  the  very 
unconciliatory  speech  he  had  planned  to  make  to  his 
judges.2 

Though  he  lived  to  be  seventy  years  of  age,  there 
was  to  the  end  no  decline  in  his  extraordinary  mental 
powers.  How  far  the  Apology,  the  Crito  and  the  Phaedo 
are  historical  we  cannot  definitely  say,  but  from  the 
general  correspondence  between  Plato's  and  Xenophon's 
accounts  of  the  trial,  it  is  clear  that  the  Apology 
faithfully  presents  the  main  lines  of  his  defence.  The 
chief  point  of  the  Crito  is  in  like  manner  borne  out 
by  Xenophon,  who  tells  us  that  "when  his  friends  would 
have  withdrawn  him  privately,  he  would  not  consent,  but 
asked  them  with  a  smile  if  they  knew  of  any  place  beyond 
the  borders  of  Attica  where  death  could  not  approach 
him."  Xenophon  also  relates  another  anecdote  snowing 
the  imperturbable  magnanimity  with  which  Socrates  met 
his  fate: 

Apollodorus  .  .  .  said  to  him,  "  But  it  grieves  me,  Socrates, 
to  have  you  die  so  unjustly."  Socrates,  with  much  tender- 
ness, laying  his  hand  upon  his  head,  answered  smiling,  "  What, 
my  much-loved  Apollodorus,  would  you  rather  they  had  con- 
demned me  justly?"  3 

1  Symposium  220. 

2  "The  oracle  made  no  sign  of  opposition,  either  as  I  was  leaving  my 
house  and  going  out  in  the  morning,  or  when  I  was  going  up  into  this 
Court,  or  while  I  was  speaking,  at  anything  which  I  was  going  to  say;  and 
yet  I  have  often  been  stopped  in  the  middle  of  a  speech,  but  now  in 
nothing  I  either  said  or  did  touching  this  matter  has  the  oracle  opposed 
me."— Apology  40.  3  The  Defence  of  Socrates. 


130  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

Between  the  picture  of  Socrates  by  Xenophon  and  that 
by  Plato  there  is  a  difference  analogous  to  that  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  Synoptic  from  the  Johannine  picture  of 
Jesus.  Many  of  the  Platonic  Dialogues  were  written 
long  years  after  the  master's  death,  and  into  his  mouth 
Plato  has  certainly  put  many  expressions  of  his  own 
maturer  thought.  Yet  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the 
superior  intellectual  powers  of  Plato  rendered  him  a  much 
more  competent  interpreter  of  Socrates  than  the  plain 
blunt  Xenophon.  The  important  thing  is  not  the  exact 
separation  of  the  Socratic  from  the  Platonic  elements, 
which  indeed  is  impossible,  but  the  fact  that  the  entire 
inspiration  of  Plato  came  from  Socrates,  without  whom 
we  should  have  had  neither  the  Platonic  Dialogues  nor 
the  philosophy  of  Aristotle. 

Another  point  of  resemblance  between  Socrates  and 
Jesus  is  found  in  the  fact  that  Socrates,  too,  was  a  poor 
man  of  humble  origin.  This,  however,  did  not  hinder 
him  from  receiving  an  education  equal  to  that  of  the 
aristocratic  class.  In  the  intellectual  democracy  of 
Athens  education  effectively  bridged  social  distinctions; 
and  we  find  that  Plato,  like  most  of  the  companions  and 
disciples  of  Socrates,  was  of  patrician  lineage.  Socrates 
seems  never  to  have  written  anything.  At  all  events, 
nothing  from  his  pen  has  come  down  to  us.  His  life  was 
one  of  voluntary  poverty.  Both  Xenophon  and  Plato 
testify  that  handsome  pecuniary  offers  were  made  to 
him,  but  that  he  always  refused  them.  Indeed,  he 
frequently  sneers  at  the  Sophists  on  the  ground  that  they 
accepted  fees  for  their  teaching.  His  irony  leads  him  to 
explain  the  matter  by  saying  that,  as  he  knew  nothing,  he 
could  teach  nothing,  and  consequently  could  not  earn  a 
fee;  whereas  the  Sophists  believed  that  they  had  real 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  131 

knowledge  of  great  value  to  communicate,  and  therefore 
were  entitled  to  monetary  rewards.  They  were  of  course 
mistaken;  but  as  their  pupils  shared  their  error,  the 
payments  were  given  and  received  in  good  faith.  Soc- 
rates always  refused  to  stand  for  public  office.  He 
thought  that  if  by  his  teaching  he  could  raise  up  a  line  of 
able  statesmen,  he  would  thus  render  a  better  service  to 
the  State  than  by  giving  his  own  life  to  political  work. 

The  character  of  Socrates  is  nowhere  more  charmingly 
manifested  than  in  his  ironical  account  of  that  Delphic 
oracle  which  had  proclaimed  him  the  wisest  of  men. 
His  friend  Chaerephon  reported  this  oracle  to  him;  and 
Socrates,  knowing,  as  he  said,  that  he  knew  nothing,  set 
himself  to  discover  what  the  god  could  possibly  mean. 
He  went  from  one  renowned  philosopher  to  another,  and 
discovered  by  cross-examination  that  these  men  were 
really  without  knowledge.  At  last,  with  genuine  modesty 
as  well  as  with  irony,  he  concluded  that  because  he  was 
aware  of  his  ignorance,  he  therefore  was  wiser  than  those 
who  erroneously  imagined  themselves  to  know  some- 
thing.1 

His  attack  upon  the  influence  of  the  Sophists  was  of 
immense  value  as  a  stimulus  to  thought.  The  difference 
between  him  and  them  was  perhaps  less  complete  than 
he  imagined,  though  no  doubt  it  was  a  vulgar  mis- 
representation to  identify  him  with  them,  as  Aristo- 
phanes did  in  his  comedy  of  The  Clouds.  Many  times 
his  reasoning,  as  reported  by  Plato  and  Xenophon,  is 
as  fallacious  as  theirs  can  have  been;  but  there  was  the 
fundamental  difference  that  he  always  insisted  upon 
distinguishing  between  knowledge  and  assumption.  He 
had,  moreover,  completely  abandoned  physical  specula- 
1  Apology  22-23. 


132  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

tions,  on  the  ground  that  the  trees  had  nothing  to  teach 
him.1  Nothing  could  be  more  delightful  or  more  merci- 
less than  his  chaff  of  the  Sophists.2 

The  basis  of  the  charge  that  he  was  a  corrupter  of 
youth  lay  in  the  limitless  influence  which  he  certainly 
exercised  over  the  younger  men.  They  regarded  him 
with  spell-bound  admiration,  and  were  always  eager  to 
drink  in  his  words.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  his 
influence  was  essentially  good  and  elevating.  The  trouble 
was,  however,  that  these  young  men  were  much  more 
willing  to  obey  him  than  their  parents;  and  this  probably 
led  to  many  a  heated  scene.  One  can  imagine  the 
virtuous  indignation  of  elderly  Athenian  gentlemen  when 
their  sons  subjected  their  commands  to  the  merciless 
scrutiny  of  the  Socratic  dialectic,  and  worked  off  on 
their  grave  and  reverend  seniors  that  demonstration  of 
complete  ignorance  which  Socrates  had  first  made  to 
them. 

The  other  count  in  the  indictment  was  a  somewhat 
confused  accusation  of  atheism  and  of  introducing 
strange  gods.  Socrates  had  no  difficulty  in  demonstrating 
the  muddle-headedness  of  Meletus  in  seeking  to  charge 
him  with  both  offences  at  once;  but  we  can  easily  see  how 
such  an  accusation  could  be  more  convincing  to  the 
Athenian  laity  than  the  very  rational  defence  set  up  by 
the  accused.  In  order  to  destroy  the  Sophistic  scepticism, 
Socrates  had  systematically  driven  the  doubts  far  deeper 
than  the  Sophists  had  done.  He  was,  moreover,  an 
extremely  formidable  critic  of  the  orthodox  religion  of  his 

1  "I  am  a  lover  of  knowledge,  and  the  men  who  dwell  in  the  city  are 
my  teachers,  and  not  the  trees  or  the  country." — Phaedrus  230. 

2Meno  71,  76;  Euthydemus  27  2  ff.;  Gorgias,  passim;  Republic  (in  the 
character  of  Thrasymachus,  &c.) ;  and  elsewhere. 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  133 

time.  Witness  the  long  passages  in  the  Republic  in 
which  he  accuses  Homer  and  Hesiod  of  blasphemy  on 
account  of  the  degrading  anecdotes  of  the  gods  which 
they  retailed.  We  can  perceive  that  he  was  an  intensely 
religious  man,  with  a  far  deeper  reverence  for  truth  and 
goodness  (which  are  essential  deity)  than  any  of  his 
contemporaries . 

But  the  charge  of  atheism  on  the  lips  of  the  vulgar 
never  proves  that  those  who  are  accused  are  really  god- 
less. It  only  proves  that  they  have  a  conception  of 
God  which  is  beyond  the  comprehension  of  their  critics. 
The  "atheism"  of  Socrates  consisted  in  his  assertion  that 
nothing  is  to  be  taught  concerning  God  which  represents 
God  as  other  than  good.1  The  application  of  such  a 
principle  made  a  clean  sweep  of  most  of  the  religious 
legends  of  the  Athenians,  just  as  it  will  of  the  great  bulk 
of  the  doctrines  which  orthodox  people  for  the  last 
fifteen  hundred  years  have  mistaken  for  Christianity. 
This  was  the  blasphemy  of  Socrates, — this  and  his  un- 
flinching analysis  of  the  current  ethical  ideas.  Nor  was 
the  indictment  upon  which  he  was  condemned  a  new  and 
hastily  trumped-up  one,  since  substantially  the  same 

1 "  God,  if  he  be  good,  is  not  the  author  of  all  things,  as  the  many 
assert,  but  he  is  the  cause  of  a  few  things  only,  and  not  of  most  things 
that  occur  to  men;  for  few  are  the  goods  of  human  life,  and  many  are 
the  evils,  and  the  good  only  is  to  be  attributed  to  him:  of  the  evil, 
other  causes  have  to  be  discovered.  .  .  . 

"And  if  anyone  asserts  that  the  violation  of  oaths  and  treaties  of 
which  Pandarus  was  the  real  author,  was  brought  about  by  Athene  and 
Zeus,  or  that  the  strife  and  conflict  of  the  gods  was  instigated  by  Themis 
and  Zeus,  he  shall  not  have  our  approval;  neither  will  we  allow  our 
young  men  to  hear  the  words  of  ^Eschylus,  when  he  says  that '  God  plants 
guilt  among  men  when  he  desires  utterly  to  destroy  a  house.'  .  .  . 

"Let  this,  then,  be  one  of  the  rules  of  recitation  and  invention, — 
that  God  is  not  the  author  of  evil,  but  of  good  only." — Republic,  Book  ii, 
§379- 


134  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

charges  had  been  brought  against  him  twenty-four  years 
earlier  by  Aristophanes. 

Let  us  pause  to  note  how  far-reaching  is  the  principle 
laid  down  by  Socrates  in  the  passages  to  which  I  have 
referred.  It  not  only  destroys  a  vast  proportion  of  the 
received  teaching  about  God,  both  in  popular  Greek  and 
in  popular  Christian  thought,  but  it  also  makes  the 
conscience  of  man  the  supreme  authority  upon  all  ques- 
tions of  religion.  For  who  is  to  determine  what  is  good? 
The  answer  of  Socrates  would  be  that  the  individual 
thinker,  using  his  own  judgment  and  thinking  out  the 
entire  question  fully  and  fairly,  can  alone  be  the  judge. 
The  principle  of  authority,  as  applied  in  Judaism  and 
in  the  Roman  and  Protestant  Churches,  is  dynamited  by 
this  ethical  doctrine  of  the  great  Athenian.  The  principle 
commonly  accepted, — namely,  that  everything  is  to  be 
received  as  good  which  authority  declares  to  have  been 
done  or  commanded  by  God, — finds  in  the  Socratic 
doctrine  its  polar  antithesis.  The  law  hidden  in  the 
spirit  of  man  is  to  be  the  supreme  judge  both  of  men  and 
of  gods. 

The  authoritarian  principle  has  been  throughout 
history  the  great  perverter  of  religion  and  moral  judg- 
ment. It  has  forced  men  to  approve  of  doctrines  and 
acts  flagrantly  contradictory  to  the  intuitions  of  the 
unsophisticated  conscience.  Christendom  has  been  fun- 
damentally degraded  by  the  idolatrous  idea  that  what- 
ever is  recorded  of  God  in  the  Bible  is  true,  and  is  neces- 
sarily good.  This  is  essentially  the  principle  maintained 
in  the  nineteenth  century  by  Dean  Mansel,  and  opposed, 
in  the  very  spirit  of  Socrates,  by  John  Stuart  Mill. 
Mansel  maintained  that  the  goodness  of  God,  being 
infinite,  was  probably  different  in  kind  from  goodness  as 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  135 

understood  and  practised  by  men.  To  this  suicidal 
position  he  was  driven  by  the  necessity  of  justifying  the 
received  Christian  theology,  with  its  ideas  of  blood  atone- 
ment, substitutionary  righteousness,  everlasting  tor- 
ment, and  the  like.  Mill,  in  refuting  this  doctrine,  ex- 
pressed himself  in  the  following  terms : 

Here,  then,  I  take  my  stand  on  the  acknowledged  principle 
of  logic  and  of  morality,  that  when  we  mean  different  things 
we  have  no  right  to  call  them  by  the  same  name,  and  to 
apply  to  them  the  same  predicates,  moral  and  intellectual. 
Language  has  no  meaning  for  the  words  Just,  Merciful,  Bene- 
volent, save  that  in  which  we  predicate  them  of  our  fellow- 
creatures;  and  unless  that  is  what  we  intend  to  express  by 
them,  we  have  no  business  to  employ  the  words.  If  in  affirm- 
ing them  of  God  we  do  not  mean  to  affirm  these  very  qualities, 
differing  only  as  greater  in  degree,  we  are  neither  philosoph- 
ically nor  morally  entitled  to  affirm  them  at  all.  .  .  .  If  in 
ascribing  goodness  to  God  I  do  not  mean  what  I  mean  by 
goodness;  if  I  do  not  mean  the  goodness  of  which  I  have  some 
knowledge,  but  an  incomprehensible  attribute  of  an  incom- 
prehensible substance,  which  for  aught  I  know  may  be  a 
totally  different  quality  from  that  which  I  love  and  venerate — 
and  even  must,  if  Mr.  Mansel  is  to  be  believed,  be  in  some 
important  particulars  opposed  to  this — what  do  I  mean  by 
calling  it  goodness?  and  what  reason  have  I  for  venerating 
it?  If  I  know  nothing  about  what  the  attribute  is,  I  cannot 
tell  that  it  is  a  proper  object  of  veneration.  To  say  that 
God's  goodness  may  be  different  in  kind  from  man's  good- 
ness, what  is  it  but  saying,  with  a  slight  change  of  phraseology, 
that  God  may  possibly  not  be  good?  .  .  . 

If,  instead  of  the  "glad  tidings"  that  there  exists  a  Being 
in  whom  all  the  excellences  which  the  highest  human  mind 
can  conceive,  exist  in  a  degree  inconceivable  to  us,  I  am  in- 
formed that  the  world  is  ruled  by  a  being  whose  attributes 


136  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

are  infinite,  but  what  they  are  we  cannot  learn,  nor  what  are 
the  principles  of  his  government,  except  that  "the  highest 
human  morality  which  we  are  capable  of  conceiving"  does 
not  sanction  them;  convince  me  of  it,  and  I  will  bear  my  fate 
as  I  may.  But  when  I  am  told  that  I  must  believe  this,  and 
at  the  same  tune  call  this  being  by  the  names  which  express 
and  affirm  the  highest  human  morality,  I  say  in  plain  terms 
that  I  will  not.  Whatever  power  such  a  being  may  have 
over  me,  there  is  one  thing  which  he  shall  not  do:  he  shall 
not  compel  me  to  worship  him.  I  will  call  no  being  good,  who 
is  not  what  I  mean  when  I  apply  that  epithet  to  my  fellow- 
creatures;  and  if  such  a  being  can  sentence  me  to  hell  for  not 
so  calling  him,  to  hell  I  will  go.1 

This  is  the  only  principle  which  can  prevent  religion 
from  becoming  a  system  of  superstition  enforced  by 
terrorization.  It  implies  the  essential  identity  of  man 
with  God,  in  the  sense  that  there  is  and  can  be  nothing 
higher  than  the  conscience  of  humanity  when  disinter- 
ested and  fully  enlightened.  We  owe  to  Socrates  the 
first  clear  and  unmistakable  enunciation  of  this  doctrine. 
It  is  intensely  depressing  to  reflect  on  the  enormous 
difference  which  its  acceptance  would  have  made  to  the 
course  of  history  from  the  fourth  century  B.  C.  down  to 
the  twentieth  century  of  the  Christian  era.  The  bar- 
barous forcings  of  conscience,  the  insistence  on  salvation 
through  correctness  of  theological  belief,  the  bloody  wars 
of  religion,  the  inhuman  burning  and  torturing  of  her- 
etics, would  have  been  rendered  impossible  if  men  had 
only  stood  upon  the  simple  principle  that,  since  God  is 
goodness,  nothing  evil  can  possibly  have  been  done  or 
commanded  by  him.  And  if  at  last  we  accept  from 

1 J.  S.  Mill,  An  Examination  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  Philosophy, 
pp.  127-29.  (Fourth  edition,  London:  Longmans,  1872.) 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  137 

Socrates  this  doctrine,  and  apply  it  as  the  regulative 
principle  of  our  faith,  we  shall  effectually  establish  the 
spiritual  freedom  and  responsibility  of  man.  We  shall 
not  destroy  authority,  but  we  shall  see  it  where  alone  it 
can  truly  be  found.  It  will  involve  the  abandonment  of 
the  notion  that  God  is  infinite  and  omnipotent;  but,  at 
the  same  time,  and  for  that  very  reason,  it  will  destroy 
the  artificial  theological  notion  of  evil,  a  notion  which 
creates  an  insoluble  contradiction  by  representing  a  per- 
fectly good  will  as  the  source  both  of  evil  and  of  good. 

In  his  analysis  of  the  contribution  made  to  human 
salvation  by  Jesus  Christ,  Matthew  Arnold  explains  the 
power  of  Jesus  as  consisting  in  a  method  and  a  secret. 
The  secret  is  that  of  inwardness;  the  method  is  that  of 
self-renunciation.  But  Arnold  was  for  the  most  part 
oblivious  of  that  great  crux  of  the  moral  life  which  so 
constantly  forced  itself  upon  the  attention  of  Socrates. 
Arnold  seems  to  have  thought  that  if  once  the  will  were 
purified  by  self-renunciation  and  earnestly  engaged  in  the 
cause  of  righteousness,  its  difficulties  would  end.  He 
held  that  to  the  man  of  good  will  the  content  of  the 
moral  law  is  self-evident.  He  contends  that  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  what  is  right,  but  only  to  do  it.1 

This,  however,  is  one  of  the  disastrous  practical  mis- 
takes which  have  played  so  tragic  a  part  in  Christian 
history.  We  are  realizing  to-day  more  than  ever  before 
that  frequently  it  is  even  more  difficult  to  decide  what 

1 "  Conduct  is  really,  however  men  may  overlay  it  with  philosophical 
disquisitions,  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  the 
simplest  thing  in  the  world  so  far  as  understanding  is  concerned;  as 
regards  doing,  it  is  the  hardest  thing  in  the  world.  Here  is  the  difficulty, — 
to  do  what  we  very  well  know  ought  to  be  done." — Literature  and  Dogma, 
chap.  i. 


138  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

is  right  than  to  act  rightly.  There  is  in  this  respect  a 
strange  and  saddening  difference  between  the  way  in 
which  the  world  advances  intellectually  and  that  in  which 
it  advances  ethically.  Every  student  of  the  physical 
sciences  can  start  from  the  point  reached  by  all  his 
predecessors,  and  can  avail  himself  of  the  full  store  of 
their  garnered  knowledge  and  experience.  He  is  not 
obliged  to  repeat  the  experiments  and  the  errors  of  men 
of  centuries  ago.  His  methods  have  been  elaborated  for 
him  by  the  accumulated  work  of  ages,  and  he  inherits  a 
mass  of  received  and  tested  truth,  upon  the  basis  of  which 
he  can  proceed  in  his  quest  for  further  knowledge.  In 
practical  morality,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  such 
utilization  of  the  experience  of  the  race.  Each  new 
generation  buys  its  wisdom  by  the  same  tragic  and  costly 
method  of  trial  and  error  as  all  that  have  preceded.  The 
hard-won  discoveries  of  mankind  as  to  the  ways  that 
lead  to  life  and  those  that  lead  to  death  cannot  be  made 
convincing  and  coercive  to  the  judgment  as  can  the 
truths  of  physical  and  mathematical  science.  Now,  one 
main  reason  for  this  state  of  things  is  the  fact  that  we 
have  scarcely  begun  to  apply  the  scientific  method  to  the 
demonstration  of  the  empirical  truths  that  relate  to  moral 
practice. 

It  is  here  that  we  most  need  to  supplement  the  method 
and  secret  of  Jesus  by  the  method  and  secret  of  Socrates. 
Not,  indeed,  that  we  are  to  accept  as  completely  true 
the  Socratic  ethical  theory.  There  is  in  the  Christian 
tradition  an  indispensable  truth  which  Socrates  ignored; 
but  also  there  is  in  the  Socratic  teaching  an  indispensable 
truth  which  is  almost  omitted  from  the  New  Testament, 
and  which  has  been  completely  overlooked  in  the  doc- 
trine and  practice  of  the  Christian  Church. 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  139 

The  secret  of  Socrates  (if  one  may  continue  to  use  the 
convenient  terminology  of  Arnold)  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
identity  of  virtue  with  true  knowledge.1  His  method  is 
to  convict  men  of  intellectual  sin,  by  exposing  their  false 
conceit  of  wisdom,  and  by  forcing  them  to  confess  that 
what  they  had  taken  for  knowledge  was  really  ignorance 
and  baseless  assumption.  He  maintained  that  if  any 
man  really  knew  what  was  good,  he  could  not  do  any- 
thing that  conflicted  with  it.  Socrates  does  not  mean  by 
this  merely  to  endorse  the  platitude  of  common  prudence, 
that  a  man  will  not  act  against  his  own  interest.  He  goes 
further.  He  conceives  of  good  or  right  as  a  single  and 
indivisible  reality,  and  does  not  draw  the  common  dis- 
tinction between  a  man's  own  interest  and  the  interest  of 
others  or  of  all. 

In  order  justly  to  understand  this  doctrine,  we  must 
constantly  remember  that  Socrates  is  not  a  materialist, 
and  is  not  entangled  in  that  ethical  heresy  and  idolatry 
which  imagines  that  the  good  of  man  consists  in  the 
things  that  he  possesses.  To  identify  the  good  with 
virtue  and  virtue  with  knowledge  is  to  define  the  good  as 
spiritual,  and  as  qualitative,  not  quantitative.  The  good 
is  a  disposition  of  the  mind  and  will,  a  quality  of  char- 
acter, and  a  state  of  consciousness  resulting  therefrom. 
Certainly  there  is  a  physical  organism  through  which  the 
soul  of  man  must  function,  and  everything  necessary  to 

xThe  essence  of  the  Socratic  doctrine  is  well  expressed  by  Richard 
Hooker:  "There  was  never  sin  committed,  wherein  a  less  good  was  not 
preferred  before  a  greater,  and  that  wilfully;  which  cannot  be  done 
without  the  singular  disgrace  of  nature,  and  the  utter  disturbance  of 
that  divine  order,  whereby  the  pre-eminence  of  chiefest  acceptation  is 
by  the  best  things  worthily  challenged.  There  is  not  that  good  which 
concerneth  us,  but  it  hath  evidence  enough  for  itself,  if  Reason  were 
diligent  to  search  it  out." — Ecclesiastical  Polity,  Book  i,  §  8. 


140  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

the  maintenance  and  efficiency  of  that  organism  is  an 
indispensable  auxiliary  to  the  attainment  of  the  good. 
Material  possessions  are  therefore  not  to  be  despised,  nor 
is  poverty  to  be  exalted  as  desirable.  The  wise  Hooker 
again  furnishes  us  with  a  perfect  statement  of  the  case: 

Inasmuch  as  righteous  life  presupposeth  life;  inasmuch  as 
to  live  virtuously  it  is  impossible  except  we  live;  therefore 
the  first  impediment,  which  naturally  we  endeavour  to  re- 
move, is  penury  and  want  of  things  without  which  we  cannot 
live.1 

The  point  to  be  remembered,  however,  is  that  all  posses- 
sions and  all  wealth  are  merely  possible  auxiliaries  of  the 
good;  they  are  never  good  in  themselves.  Even  in  the 
most  beautiful  works  of  art,  what  is  good  is  not  the 
material  substance  but  the  spiritual  impress  which  they 
bear  and  communicate.  In  so  far  as  they  incarnate  their 
creators  they  are  good,  because  they  are  thus  effective 
means  to  the  creation  of  an  analogous  good  in  the  minds 
of  those  who  behold  and  use  them.  All  separation  of 
good  from  the  spirit,  all  ascription  of  worth  to  anything 
other  than  spiritual  qualities,  is  at  once  erroneous  and 
dangerous.  Ruskin  reaffirmed  this  doctrine  (which  he 
had  learned  both  from  Socrates  and  from  Jesus)  when 
he  asserted  that  there  is  no  wealth  but  life.  Money,  and 
that  wealth  of  which  money  is  a  measure  and  to  which  it 
constitutes  a  transferable  title,  is  but  a  means  to  an 
end.  Money  in  itself  can  be  neither  good  nor  evil.  Only 
the  end,  which  is  the  spiritual  condition  of  rational  agents, 
can  possess  any  ethical  or  anti-ethical  quality. 

It  is  in  this  sense  that  Socrates  is  able  to  believe  in  the 
unity  of  the  good.  He  ignores  the  clash  between  the  good 

1  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  Book  i,  §  x. 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  141 

of  one  and  the  good  of  all,  because,  from  his  point  of 
view,  that  clash  does  not  exist.  The  opposition  is  tran- 
scended. If  we  think  of  good  as  consisting  in  houses  and 
lands,  in  metals  and  jewels,  and  in  the  currencies  by 
which  these  things  are  appraised  and  transferred,  there 
may  be  an  endless  conflict  between  the  interests  of  men. 
But  if  we  accept  the  principle  that  the  good  does  not 
and  cannot  consist  in  externals,  we  then  see  that  the 
conflict  over  them  is  not  a  conflict  of  goods.  If  the  good 
be  the  perfection  of  the  spiritual  nature  of  man,  then, 
since  all  men  share  the  same  nature,  they  must  be  capable 
of  experiencing  the  one  indivisible  good.  What  is  truly 
and  essentially  good  for  me  must,  by  the  force  of  the 
terms,  be  good  also  for  you  and  for  all  rational  agents. 

This  is  the  presupposition  of  all  the  ethical  reasoning  of 
Socrates.  That  quality  of  mind  and  character  which 
alone  is  good  is  for  him  an  attainable  reality.  It  is  of 
such  nature  that  its  claim  to  be  considered  good  becomes 
self-evident  to  every  man  the  moment  he  adequately  con- 
ceives it.  It  is  inherently  and  intrinsically  preferable  to 
all  else;  to  know  it  is  to  desire  it,  with  all  the  force  of  the 
soul's  spontaneous  love.  It  destroys  the  attractive 
power  of  all  its  rivals,  as  the  rising  sun  puts  the  stars  to 
flight.  We  believe  in  the  possibility  of  a  conflict  of  goods 
only  because  we  are  not  enlightened  as  to  the  true  nature 
and  unity  of  the  good. 

It  is  impossible  to  use  concerning  the  good,  as  Socrates 
conceived  it,  language  adequate  to  the  exaltation  of  his 
thought.  Nor  can  one  too  emphatically  insist  that  this 
intensity  of  appreciation  was  no  sentimental  preference 
of  his.  It  was  in  the  deepest  sense  a  rational  conviction, 
arrived  at  and  justified  by  way  of  the  fullest  debate  with 
all  opposing  doctrines.  Among  the  many  "modern" 


142  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

ideas  with  which  the  Republic  abounds,  nothing  is  more 
conspicuous  than  the  complete  anticipation  of  that 
widespread  doctrine  which  identifies  morality  with  the 
self-interested  conventions  of  a  slave  class.  Thrasym- 
achus  and  Glaucon  are  permitted  to  develop  this  thesis 
to  the  uttermost.  So,  too,  is  Callicles  in  the  Gorgias. 
It  is  after  taking  full  account  of  it, — after  knowing  all 
that  can  be  said  in  the  strongest  terms  against  his  own 
position, — that  Socrates  reaches  the  magnificent  heights 
of  ethical  certitude  which  give  such  persuasive  dignity 
to  the  closing  books  of  the  Republic.  He  does  not 
always  refute  the  anti-ethical  position  of  the  supermen 
by  direct  argumentation.  Rather  he  leads  them  on, 
by  a  gradual  disclosure  of  his  thought  on  other  subjects, 
and  by  engaging  their  minds  in  new  aspects  of  the  theme, 
to  the  point  where  suddenly  their  eyes  are  opened  to  the 
inherent  nobility  of  real  virtue,  and  to  the  fact  that  it  is 
demanded  by  the  ultimate  law  of  their  own  being.  Im- 
mediately this  vision  is  caught,  all  the  sophistry  of  the 
individualistic  will-to-power  school  falls  away  of  itself. 
The  ultimate  anchorage  of  the  moral  law  is  the  fact  that 
it  is  what  the  nature  of  man  spontaneously  wills  as  soon 
as  it  understands  itself. 

This  central  conviction  of  Socrates  accounts  for  the 
unique  importance  ascribed  in  his  system  to  right  educa- 
tion. The  high  and  solemn  dedication  of  his  philosopher- 
rulers  to  their  life  work  l  finds  its  explanation  in  the 
imperative  need  that  before  they  assume  their  functions 
in  the  commonwealth  their  eyes  shall  be  opened  to  the 
divine  vision,  and  their  minds  trained  to  a  just  apprecia- 
tion of  the  scale  of  human  values.  They  must  know 
what  is  the  paramount  and  essential  good  attainable  by 
1  See  Books  iii,  iv  and  v  of  the  Republic. 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  143 

humanity,  in  order  that  they  may  administer  the  affairs 
of  the  State  in  accordance  with  sound  principles,  and 
secure  to  all  its  inhabitants  the  highest  measure  of  true 
good  (as  distinguished  from  mere  wealth  or  happiness) 
which  they  are  capable  of  achieving.  The  same  central 
conception  explains  the  Socratic  insistence  that  education 
is  something  more  than  a  knowledge  of  facts.  It  is  the 
path  to  essential  beauty,  to  virtue,  and  to  the  divine. 
Since  the  real  is  to  be  sought  in  the  sphere  of  ideas,  the 
world  of  fact  becomes  a  mere  symbol  and  illustration  of 
these  intangible  and  super-sensible  realities.1  Thus  all 
real  knowledge  is  of  the  nature  of  intuition  or  inspiration,2 
which  may  ensue  upon  the  process  of  laborious  study,  but 
is  not  ensured  by  it  and  does  not  follow  from  it  by  logical 
necessity. 

Such  a  conception  of  knowledge  and  of  the  knowable 
explains  the  overwhelming  enthusiasm  with  which 
Socrates  devoted  himself  to  his  mission  of  exposing  the 
false  conceit  of  wisdom.  For  him  all  sin  was  ignorance, 
and  all  ignorance  sin.  His  conception  of  virtue  is  ex- 
pressed with  literal  exactness  in  the  majestic  and  exalted 
language  of  one  of  the  Church's  invocations  of  God: 
"In  knowledge  of  whom  standeth  our  eternal  life:  whose 
service  is  perfect  freedom."  It  was  because  he  held  this 
belief  with  an  inexpressible  intensity  of  conviction  and 
realization  that  he  chose  a  life  of  voluntary  poverty  and 
underwent  a  martyr's  death  for  the  sake  of  convicting 
men  of  that  sin  which  blinded  them  to  the  perfect  good. 

He  does  not  make  a  formal  classification  of  the  inward 
obstacles  to  knowledge,  but  throughout  his  teaching  is 

1  See  closing  sections  of  Book  vi,  and  opening  section  of  Book  vii  of 
the  Republic. 

2  See  below,  chapter  vi. 


144  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

implied  his  consciousness  of  the  four  great  sources  of 
error  which  Bacon  calls  the  idols  of  the  tribe,  the  idols  of 
the  cave,  the  idols  of  the  market-place,  and  the  idols  of 
the  theatre.  Remembering  the  extent  to  which  he  was 
occupied  in  refuting  the  fallacies  and  unfounded  assump- 
tions of  what  passed  for  philosophies,  we  cannot  doubt 
that  he  would  have  endorsed  most  heartily  the  statement 
of  Bacon  concerning  these: — 

Lastly,  there  are  Idols  which  have  immigrated  into  men's 
minds  from  the  various  dogmas  of  philosophies,  and  also 
from  wrong  laws  of  demonstration.  These  I  call  Idols  of  the 
Theatre;  because  in  my  judgment  all  the  received  systems 
are  but  so  many  stage-plays,  representing  worlds  of  their  own 
creation  after  an  unreal  and  scenic  fashion.  Nor  is  it  only 
of  the  systems  now  in  vogue,  or  only  of  the  ancient  sects  and 
philosophies,  that  I  speak;  for  many  more  plays  of  the  same 
kind  may  yet  be  composed  and  in  like  artificial  manner  set 
forth;  seeing  that  errors  the  most  widely  different  have 
nevertheless  causes  for  the  most  part  alike.  Neither  again 
do  I  mean  this  only  of  entire  systems,  but  also  of  many 
principles  and  axioms  in  science,  which  by  tradition,  credulity 
and  negligence  have  come  to  be  received.1 

The  explanation  of  the  failure  of  Socrates  to  recognize 
the  possibility  of  wilful  wrong-doing,  of  what  we  call 
sinning  against  the  light,  is  to  be  found  in  the  extraor- 
dinary force  of  his  own  character.  It  was  the  very 
strength  of  the  man  that  caused  the  weakness  of  his  doc- 
trine. He  seems  to  have  been  endowed  by  nature  with 
a  fortitude  of  the  spirit  that  was  of  a  piece  with  the 
bodily  hardihood  ascribed  to  him  by  Alcibiades.  By  iron 
discipline,  continued  through  life,  he  had  become  able  to 
1  Novum  Organum,  Aphorism  xliv. 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  145 

do  effortlessly  and  habitually  what  others  could  do  only 
rarely  and  with  difficulty,  or  not  at  all.  For  him,  to  know 
what  was  right  was  to  be  able  to  do  it.  It  was  not  that  he 
was  immune  by  nature  from  temptation.  On  the  con- 
trary, in  some  respects,  if  we  may  believe  Plato,  he  had 
in  his  youth  been  specially  subject  to  the  promptings 
of  desire  for  several  of  the  pleasures  of  the  senses.  But 
his  inborn  love  for  philosophy  had  enabled  him  to  master 
these,  and  thus  to  turn  what  might  have  been  besetting 
sins  into  besetting  virtues. 

Rationalist  as  he  was,  his  rationalistic  procedure  was 
prompted  by  an  intuition,  involving  an  unshakable  faith 
in  an  indemonstrable  doctrine.  That  ultimate  good 
which  he  identified  with  knowledge,  and  against  which 
he  could  not  imagine  any  man  deliberately  acting,  was 
indefinable.  "He  could  give,"  says  Sidgwick,1  "no 
account  that  satisfied  him  of  good  in  the  abstract."  The 
reality  of  the  good,  and  its  identity  with  beauty  and  with 
truth,  were  for  him  presuppositions,  not  conclusions;  or 
rather  we  may  say  that  they  were  truths  which,  being 
self-evident,  needed  no  demonstration.  Since  his  own 
natural  and  acquired  firmness  of  purpose  enabled  him 
always  to  tread  the  path  marked  out  by  conviction,  he 
failed  to  allow  for  the  fact  that  with  other  men  there  is  a 
terrific  and  often  insuperable  obstacle  to  the  doing  of 
what  is  seen  to  ,be  right.  St.  Paul  was  always  bitterly 
conscious  of  this  difficulty,  and  the  whole  of  his  energy 
was  directed  to  overcoming  it.  It  was  his  keen  sense  of 
the  "war  in  our  members,"  and  of  the  spontaneous 
tendency  to  do  what  is  admitted  to  be  wrong,  which  in- 
spired his  unbounded  gratitude  to  Jesus  Christ,  who  for 
him  had  supplied  the  strength  necessary  to  overcome 
1  History  of  Ethics,  p.  37. 


146  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

the  wayward  impulse.  The  shortcoming  of  Socrates  is 
that,  having  himself  been  able,  without  the  expulsive 
power  of  a  personal  affection,  to  eradicate  the  weakness 
that  would  have  beguiled  his  feet  from  the  paths  of 
known  duty,  he  did  not  realize  the  necessity  for  providing 
others  with  a  dynamic  to  reinforce  their  insufficient 
powers  in  this  direction. 

For  an  instance  of  the  method  of  Socrates  which  is  not 
only  illuminating,  but  has  the  added  advantage  of  being 
in  all  probability  authentic,  we  cannot  do  better  than 
turn  to  Xenophon's  record  of  a  certain  dialogue  with 
Euthydemus.1  In  the  Platonic  composition  of  that  title 
we  cannot  be  sure  whether  we  are  listening  to  Socrates 
or  to  Plato.  Its  irony  is  almost  more  marked  than  that 
of  any  of  the  other  Dialogues,  and  it  is  presumably  not  so 
much  the  actual  memory  of  conversations  with  Euthy- 
demus which  inspires  Plato  as  the  purpose  of  killing 
with  satire  the  eristic  method.  Plato  was  certainly  equal 
to  the  invention  of  all  that  his  Euthydemus  contains. 
The  limitations  of  Xenophon,  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
stitute our  best  guarantee  that  he  did  not  invent  what 
he  records  of  the  dealings  of  Socrates  with  that  noble 
youth,  and  accordingly  we  may  the  more  securely  rely 
upon  the  probable  genuineness  of  what  he  offers  us. 

Euthydemus  was  a  handsome  young  Athenian  gentle- 
man, of  considerable  attainments,  who  had  formed  a 
collection  of  the  writings  of  many  poets  and  sophists, 
imagining  that  he  was  thereby  surpassing  the  accomplish- 
ments of  his  contemporaries.  He  intended  to  devote 
himself  to  public  affairs.  It  was  his  manner,  however, 
not  to  seek  any  instruction  from  other  men,  but  by  his 

1  Memorabilia  of  Socrates,  Book  iv,  chap.  ii. 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  147 

own  study  and  thought  to  equip  himself  for  the  career 
to  which  he  aspired.  Socrates,  observing  this,  made  a 
point  of  uttering  in  the  hearing  of  Euthydemus  remarks 
to  the  effect  that  no  man  could  prepare  himself  for  the 
work  of  a  statesman  merely  by  reading,  or  without 
special  discipline  in  the  particular  tasks  which  he 
proposed  later  to  undertake.  As  Euthydemus,  with  the 
superior  self-confidence  of  youth,  was  wont  to  withdraw 
from  conversations  of  this  kind,  Socrates  satirized  his 
procedure  by  depicting  him  as  applying  to  the  public 
for  the  office  not  of  a  statesman  but  of  a  physician: — 

"I,  O  men  of  Athens"  [he  imagines  Euthydemus  saying], 
"have  never  learned  the  medical  art  from  anyone,  nor  have 
been  desirous  that  any  physician  should  be  my  instructor; 
for  I  have  constantly  been  on  my  guard,  not  only  against 
learning  anything  of  the  art  from  anyone,  but  even  against 
appearing  to  have  learned  the  medical  art;  nevertheless,  con- 
fer on  me  this  medical  appointment;  for  I  will  endeavour  to 
learn  by  making  experiments  upon  you."  1 

In  like  manner  he  points  out  that  any  person  who  wished 
to  learn  to  play  the  flute  or  to  ride  would  go  for  tuition 
to  masters  of  those  simple  arts;  and  that  the  pursuits 
of  the  statesman,  being  incalculably  more  difficult, 
necessitated  special  instruction  in  a  much  greater  degree. 
Afterwards,  out  of  consideration  for  the  modesty  of 
the  young  man,  Socrates  went  alone  to  a  certain  bridle- 
maker's  shop  where  Euthydemus  was  wont  to  read,  and 
questioned  him  concerning  his  books.  He  begins  with  a 
half -ironical  expression  of  his  admiration,  "because  you 
have  not  preferred  acquiring  treasures  of  silver  and 
gold  rather  than  of  wisdom."  He  then,  by  a  series  of 

1  Memorabilia,  loc.  cit.,  §  5. 


148  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

questions,  elicits  the  confession  that  Euthydemus  was 
desirous  of  attaining  that  talent  "by  which  men  become 
skilled  in  governing  states,  in  managing  households, 
able  to  command,  and  qualified  to  benefit  other  men  as 
well  as  themselves."  His  next  step  is  to  raise  artfully 
the  question  of  the  nature  of  justice.  Euthydemus  is 
at  first  quite  confident  that  he  will  be  able  to  enumerate 
the  works  of  justice,  and  to  distinguish  them  from  those 
of  injustice.  Socrates  proposes  to  make  lists  of  these 
"works,"  and  to  draw  up  a  catalogue  from  his  victim's 
dictation.  Under  the  heading  of  injustice  he  thus  enu- 
merates falsehood,  deceit,  the  enslavement  of  men,  etc. 
Having  extracted  these  data,  he  at  once  proceeds  to 
state  cases  in  which  every  one  of  them  might  be  practised 
justly, — for  example,  the  enslavement  of  an  unjust  and 
hostile  people  by  the  leader  of  an  army. 

Not  being  able  to  deny  this,  Euthydemus  qualifies 
his  former  assertions  by  maintaining  that  it  was  just 
to  do  such  things  to  enemies,  but  unjust  to  practise  them 
towards  friends.  Hereupon  Socrates,  by  stating  more 
hypothetical  cases,  extorts  the  acknowledgment  that 
this  distinction  also  fails.  A  father,  for  example,  would 
be  right  to  deceive  a  sick  son  by  giving  him  medicine  as 
ordinary  food;  or  a  man  might  justly  steal  the  sword 
with  which  his  friend  intended  to  slay  himself.  Euthy- 
demus is  by  this  tune  reduced  to  saying,  "I  no  longer  put 
confidence  in  the  answers  which  I  give,  for  all  that  I 
said  before  appears  to  me  now  to  be  quite  different 
from  what  I  then  thought."  He  ventures,  however,  to 
suggest  that  intentional  deception  is  more  unjust  than 
involuntary  deception. 

By  a  highly  sophistical  argument,  which  imposes  upon 
Euthydemus,  Socrates  next  compels  the  admission  that 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  149 

a  man  who  knows  what  is  just  but  practises  injustice 
is  more  just  than  he  who  does  just  deeds  unreflectingly. 
With  many  more  questions  Socrates  produces  in  the 
young  man  the  disheartening  realization  that  he  does 
not  know  what  is  good,  either  for  himself  or  for  others. 
"These  points,  however,"  proceeds  Socrates,  "you  have 
perhaps  not  sufficiently  considered,  from  a  too  confident 
belief  that  you  were  already  well  acquainted  with  them; 
but  since  you  intend  to  be  at  the  head  of  a  democratic 
government,  you  doubtless  know  what  a  democracy 
is."  "Assuredly,"  answers  Euthydemus,  and  defines 
the  demos  as  consisting  of  the  poorer  class  of  citizens. 
Socrates  promptly  catches  him  here  by  asking  him  what 
constitutes  poverty.  Having  shown  that  small  means 
were  sufficient  for  some,  while  large  fortunes  were  insuffi- 
cient for  others,  and  therefore  that  the  conventional 
judgment  as  to  riches  and  poverty  must  be  in  many 
cases  inverted,  he  at  last  forces  the  bewildered  youth  to 
say,  "I  am  considering  whether  it  would  not  be  best 
for  me  to  be  silent,  for  I  seem  to  know  absolutely 
nothing." 

Of  those  who  were  thus  treated  by  Socrates  [says  Xeno- 
phon]  many  came  to  him  no  more,  and  these  he  regarded  as 
too  dull  to  be  improved;  but  Euthydemus,  on  the  contrary, 
conceived  that  he  could  by  no  other  means  become  an  es- 
timable character  than  by  associating  with  Socrates  as  much 
as  possible;  and  he  in  consequence  never  quitted  him,  unless 
some  necessary  business  obliged  him  to  do  so.  He  also 
imitated  many  of  his  habits.  When  Socrates  saw  that  he 
was  thus  disposed,  he  no  longer  puzzled  him  with  questions, 
but  explained  to  him  in  the  simplest  and  clearest  manner 
what  he  thought  that  he  ought  to  know,  and  what  it  would 
be  best  for  him  to  study. 


150  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

We  must  remember  that  this  terrible  dialectic  ma- 
chine, in  which  poor  Euthydemus  was  crushed,  was  not 
employed  by  Socrates  for  the  sake  of  its  negative  results. 
He  neither  wished  to  display  his  own  cleverness,  nor  to 
provide  the  young  men  with  an  instrument  by  which 
they  might  make  themselves  a  nuisance  to  others.  His 
unshakable  conviction  was  that,  hard  as  the  obtaining 
of  true  knowledge  may  be,  yet  the  greatest  obstacle  to 
it  was  men's  false  idea  that  they  already  possessed  it. 
Now  from  this  false  idea  very  few  of  us  are  free.  We 
are  all  more  or  less  in  the  position  of  that  student  of 
botany  who  denned  a  leaf  as  "a  flat  green  object  which 
we  know  all  about  already."  Until  this  illusion  of 
knowledge  is  removed,  truth  can  gain  no  entrance  into 
the  mind. 

1  Socrates  is  differentiated  from  the  Sophists  in  part  by 
the  fact  that  he  never  used  his  critical  method  for  its 
own  sake,  and  that  he  was  as  rigorous  with  himself  as 
with  others,  and  as  ready  to  be  confuted  as  to  confute. 
Despite  the  genuine  modesty  with  which  he  avowed  his 
own  ignorance,  moreover,  we  know  that  he  had  in  re- 
serve a  body  of  very  definite  and  positive  ideas  touching 
all  the  problems  of  the  conduct  of  life,  which  he  was 
eager  to  communicate  to  his  pupils  as  soon  as  he  had 
disciplined  them  into  readiness  for  it.  First  he  must 
convict  them  of  sin,  that  afterwards  he  might  initiate 
them  into  the  way  of  right  knowledge  and  righteousness. 

To  what  positive  beliefs  the  process  of  conviction  was 
introductory,  we  may  see  in  the  Platonic  Dialogues. 
There  we  have  an  inexhaustible  fount  of  ideas,  many  of 
which  to-day  are  being  laboriously  rediscovered  and 
trumpeted  abroad  as  the  newest  and  best  results  of 
human  wisdom.  The  Republic  offers  us  the  majestic 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  151 

image  of  an  ideal  State,  governed  competently  and  be- 
nevolently by  an  aristocracy,  in  the  literal  sense  of  that 
term,— that  is,  by  a  caste  selected  in  virtue  of  its  natural 
endowments  and  educated  by  a  lifelong  rigorous  discip- 
line for  the  lofty  functions  it  is  destined  to  discharge. 
These  governors  are  to  possess  no  property  of  their  own, 
in  order  that  they  may  be  absolutely  disinterested  in 
their  office.1 

In  outlining  their  studies,  Socrates  incidentally  lays 
down  one  of  the  most  fundamental  of  the  modern  prin- 
ciples of  pedagogy,  which  is  that  the  voluntary  interest 
and  self -activity  of  the  pupil  must  always  be  engaged.2 

Nor  does  he  fail  to  pierce  through  that  most  obstinate 
of  prejudices  which  until  our  own  day  has  excluded 
woman  from  an  equal  part  with  man  in  the  control  of 
the  world's  affairs.3 

The  idea  of  the  selective  breeding  of  the  human  race, 
which  is  the  inspiration  of  our  modern  eugenics  move- 
ment, is  equally  familiar  to  Plato.  He  also  avoids  that 
degradation  of  it  which,  by  reducing  it  to  the  level  of 
pigeon-fancying  or  cattle-breeding,  would  make  it  in- 
compatible with  the  spiritual  dignity  of  mankind.  Greek 

1  Republic,  Book  iii,  §§  416-17. 

2  "A  free  man  ought  to  be  a  free  man  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge. 
Bodily  exercise,  when  compulsory,  does  no  harm;  but  knowledge  which 
is  acquired  under  compulsion  has  no  hold  on  the  mind." — Republic, 
Book  viii,  §  536. 

3  "  In  the  administration  of  a  State,  neither  a  woman  as  a  woman,  nor 
a  man  as  a  man,  has  any  special  function,  but  the  gifts  of  nature  are 
equally  diffused  in  both  sexes.  .  .  . 

"The  woman  has  equally  with  the  man  the  qualities  which  make  a 
guardian;  she  differs  only  in  degrees  of  strength.  .  .  . 

"Being  of  the  same  nature  with  them,  ought  they  not  to  have  the 
same  pursuits?  .  .  . 

"The  contrary  practice,  which  prevails  at  present,  is  in  reality  a 
violation  of  nature." — Republic,  Book  v,  §§  455-56. 


152  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

as  he  is,  Plato  does  not  suggest  that  bodily  fineness 
should  be  the  sole  end  aimed  at  in  a  eugenic  scheme.  It 
is  the  blending  of  spiritual  qualities,  for  the  purpose  of 
ensuring  their  harmonious  balance  and  stability,  that 
he  advocates.  His  plan  is  "to  make  matrimony  as  holy 
as  possible,  the  most  beneficial  marriages  being  the 
most  holy." 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  ideas,  commonly  supposed  to  be 
essentially  modern,  which  we  find  presented  by  the 
Platonic  Socrates,  and  discussed  with  a  many-sidedness 
and  maturity  of  wisdom  all  too  rare  in  our  own  day.  Yet 
not  alone  for  these  are  we  indebted  to  him.  Far  more 
important  is  the  teaching,  which  is  constantly  recurring 
in  his  conversations,  that  morality  finds  its  basis  in  the 
nature  of  man  and  of  things,  and  its  justification  in  the 
quality  of  character  which  it  produces.  The  essential 
fallacy  of  the  school  which  claims  (however  falsely)  to 
follow  Nietzsche  is  the  notion  that  a  man  can  trample 
down  the  dictates  of  conscience,  can  utterly  ignore 
the  good  of  others  and  use  them  merely  as  a  means 
to  his  selfish  ends,  and  can  be  the  same  man  after  he 
has  done  this  as  he  was  before.  The  unanswerable 
refutation  of  this  naive  idea  is  the  priceless  achieve- 
ment of  Socrates.  "Do  not  imagine,"  he  says  in  effect, 
"that  we  are  telling  you  to  be  honest,  truthful,  chaste, 
sober,  just  and  merciful,  in  order  to  prevent  you  from 
enjoying  life  and  being  happy.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
because  we  are  as  deeply  interested  in  your  self-fulfill- 
ment as  you  yourself  can  be,  that  we  give  you  this  coun- 
sel. Try  it  and  see.  Prove  all  things,  but  hold  fast 
that  which  is  good."  Nowhere  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
inevitable  deterioration  that  follows  upon  immorality 
more  perfectly  brought  out  than  in  the  great  myths 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  153 

in  the  Gorgias 1  and  in  the  Phaedo,2  in  which,  as 
elsewhere,  Plato  advances  the  idea  of  eternal  punish- 
ment, as  being  the  only  adequate  expression  of  the  in- 
curable corruption  of  a  soul  which  has  chosen  evil  and 
systematically  committed  the  worst  crimes.  With  this 
teaching  he  combines  the  humane  and  rational  doctrine 
that  the  purpose  of  punishment  should  be  either  re- 
formatory or  exemplary,  but  never  vindictive.3 

Be  it  remembered  that  the  Platonic  myths  4  embody 
no  dogmatic  teaching.  They  are  attempts  to  express 
in  pictures  the  truths  which  cannot  be  conveyed  by 
words.  The  ultimate  purpose  of  the  teacher — Socrates 
or  Plato — is  to  arouse  something  more  than  a  mere  logical 
assent  to  his  positions.  He  desires  to  quicken  an  en- 
thusiastic conviction  which  shall  fructify  in  ennobling 
and  consistent  action.  Therefore  it  is  that,  after  ex- 
hausting all  the  resources  of  his  dialectic  art,  he  pre- 
cipitates into  mythical  pictures  the  profound  intuitive 
convictions  which  are  the  inspiration  of  his  own  life. 

1  Sections  524-25.  2  Sections  113-14. 

3  "Now  the  proper  office  of  punishment  is  twofold;  he  who  is  rightly 
punished  ought  either  to  become  better  and  profit  by  it,  or  he  ought 
to  be  made  an  example  to  his  fellows,  that  they  may  see  what  he  suffers, 
and  fear  and  become  better;  those  who  are  punished  by  gods  and  men, 
and  improved,  are  those  whose  sins  are  curable;  still  the  way  of  im- 
proving them,  as  in  this  world  so  also  in  another,  is  by  pain  and  suffering; 
for  there  is  no  other  way  in  which  they  can  be  delivered  from  their  evil. 
But  they  who  have  been  guilty  of  the  worst  crimes,  and  are  incurable 
by  reason  of  their  crimes,  are  made  examples;  for,  as  they  are  incurable, 
the  time  has  passed  at  which  they  can  receive  any  benefit  themselves. 
But  others  get  good  when  they  behold  them  for  ever  enduring  the  most 
terrible  and  painful  and  fearful  sufferings  as  the  penalty  of  their  sins; 
there  they  are,  hanging  up  as  examples,  in  the  prison-house  of  the  world 
below,  a  spectacle  and  a  warning  to  all  unrighteous  men  who  come 
thither." — Gorgias,  §  527. 

4  In  this  connection  should  be  studied  the  excellent  treatise  on  The 
Mytiis  of  Plato,  by  Professor  J.  A.  Stewart,  of  Oxford. 


154  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

The  question  whether  life  is  good  and  is  worth  living 
presents  itself  to  the  intellect  as  a  problem  demanding 
to  be  solved ;  but  the  whole  man, — the  synthesis  in  which 
intellect  is  but  one  element — is  the  concrete  solution  of 
that  problem.  He  is  the  outcome  of  action  by  past 
generations  upon  the  instinctive  but  indemonstrable 
certainty  that  life  is  good.  On  the  plane  of  rational  and 
conceptual  thought  the  question,  Is  life  worth  living? 
is  unanswerable,  and  therefore  idle;  but  the  answer  is 
given  in  the  fact  that  we  are  alive,  and  in  the  further 
fact  that  we  cannot  act  save  upon  the  presupposition 
that  life  is  worth  living. 

Now  the  service  of  myth  and  poetry  consists  in  re- 
storing to  us  the  vision  of  the  world  as  felt.  It  precipi- 
tates and  communicates  what  Professor  Stewart  has 
well  called  "transcendental  feeling."  The  purpose  of 
the  myth-form  is  not  to  answer  questions,  but,  by  touch- 
ing hidden  chords,  to  stir  the  memory  and  open  the 
forgetful  eyes.  Our  greatest  modern  American  poet, 
William  Vaughn  Moody,  in  his  drama  The  Fire-bringer, 
has  some  lines  which  exactly  convey  this  function  of 
myth.  It  is  to  restore  to  consciousness  the  sense  of 

...  an  inner  freshness  in  the  dew, 
A  look  inscrutable  the  stars  put  on, 
A  fount  of  secret  colour  in  the  dawn; 
After  dayfall  a  daylight  that  remains, 
Brighter  than  what  is  gone. 

Among  the  unutterable  truths  by  which  the  whole 
life  of  Socrates  was  animated,  the  chief  was  his  convic- 
tion of  the  unconditional  worth  and  imperativeness  of  the 
law  of  virtue,  considered  not  as  an  arbitrary  command 
imposed  from  without,  but  as  the  expression  of  that 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  155 

deepest  selfhood  in  man  which  is  one  with  the  ultimate 
reality  of  the  universe.  This  it  is  which  he  seeks  to  con- 
vey by  the  doctrine  of  immortality  and  of  the  eternal 
punishment  of  the  desperately  wicked,  who  incur  this 
fate  as  the  natural  consequence  of  having  violated  their 
own  essential  nature.  Such  is  his  answer  to  the  clever 
sophistry  which  declares  morality  to  be  a  mere  bundle 
of  conventions  devised  by  "the  many  weak." 

Here,  as  elsewhere  in  this  book,  I  find  myself  enmeshed 
in  the  hopeless  difficulty  of  treating  in  a  single  chapter 
a  theme  to  which  even  a  large  volume  could  not  do  jus- 
tice. Yet  perhaps  I  may  make  my  peace  with  the  reader, 
and  with  the  imperial  spirit  of  Socrates,  if  I  can  but 
achieve  the  one  purpose  of  this  inadequate  sketch.  I 
am  not  seeking  to  give  a  synoptic  outline  that  shall 
serve  in  lieu  of  first-hand  study,  but  only  to  bring  my 
readers  to  Plato. 

It  was  once  said  of  Shakespeare  that  he  was  "an  intel- 
lectual ocean,  whose  waves  washed  all  the  shores  of 
thought."  This  is  an  excellent  phrase,  though  as  applied 
to  Shakespeare  it  is  inept  and  incongruous;  but  it  does 
with  most  felicitous  appropriateness  characterize  Plato. 
My  contention  is  that  the  Platonic  Dialogues  contain 
a  revelation  as  genuinely  divine  as  that  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures.  Nor  do  I  use  these  words  sentimentally, 
but  with  a  vivid  and  clear  idea  in  mind  which  I  wish 
to  convey  by  them.  Revelation  does  not  mean  the 
disclosure,  from  a  superhuman  source,  of  new  truth 
which  the  mind  of  man  could  not  otherwise  attain. 
There  is  perhaps  not  a  single  doctrine  in  the  Bible 
that  has  not  been  set  forth  by  other  men  whom  nobody 
asserts  to  have  been  supernaturally  enlightened.  What 
revelation  practically  means  is  the  presentation  of 


156  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

spiritual  truth  with  vivifying  power,  so  that  it  becomes 
not  a  mere  intellectual  belief  but  a  volitional  force. 
That  truth  is  to  me  a  revelation  which  springs  to  life 
within  me,  changing  the  course  of  my  conduct  and  the 
quality  of  my  character. 

In  this  sense,  there  is  to  some  extent  a  divine  revela- 
tion in  the  literature  of  every  nation,  but  pre-eminently 
in  the  literatures  of  Palestine  and  Greece.  Of  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Bible  it  would  be  irrelevant  to  speak  here; 
and  my  silence  should  not  be  understood  as  implying  dis- 
paragement of  it.  But  Plato  for  more  than  twenty 
centuries  has  been  to  the  learned  and  the  elect  what  the 
Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures  have  been  to  the  mass. 
One  of  the  advances  most  earnestly  to  be  desired  is  that 
he  may  henceforth  become  for  the  mass  what  hitherto 
he  has  been  only  for  the  minority.1  To  say  that  this 
is  impossible  would  be  to  pass  a  final  condemnation  upon 
democracy.  For  the  source  of  all  the  rawnesses  from 
which  our  democracy  suffers  is  precisely  the  lack  of  such 

1  This  influence  of  Plato  has  been  expressed  in  a  manner  beyond 
rivalry  by  Emerson:  "These  sentences  contain  the  culture  of  nations. 
These  are  the  corner-stone  of  schools;  these  are  the  fountain-head  of 
literatures.  A  discipline  it  is  in  logic,  arithmetic,  taste,  symmetry,  poetry, 
language,  rhetoric,  ontology,  morals  or  practical  wisdom.  There  was 
never  such  range  of  speculation.  Out  of  Plato  come  all  things  that  are 
still  written  and  debated  among  men  of  thought.  Great  havoc  makes 
he  among  our  originalities.  We  have  reached  the  mountain  from  which 
all  these  drift  boulders  were  detached.  The  Bible  of  the  learned  for 
twenty-two  hundred  years,  every  brisk  young  man  who  says  in  succession 
fine  things  to  each  reluctant  generation, — Boethius,  Rabelais,  Erasmus, 
Bruno,  Locke,  Rousseau,  Alfieri,  Coleridge,— is  some  reader  of  Plato, 
translating  into  the  vernacular,  wittily,  his  good  things.  Even  the  men 
of  grander  proportion  suffer  some  deduction  from  the  misfortune  (shall 
I  say?)  of  coming  after  this  exhausting  generalizer.  St.  Augustine, 
Copernicus,  Newton,  Behmen,  Swedenborg,  Goethe,  are  likewise  his 
debtors,  and  must  say  after  him." — Essay  on  Plato,  in  Representative 
Men. 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  157 

enlightenment  as  philosophy  can  give.  We  walk  in 
darkness  because  we  are  materialists,  and  by  necessary 
consequence  idolaters.  We  are  bemused  by  the  hypno- 
tism of  sense  and  outward  things.  By  nobody  can  this 
baleful  spell  be  so  effectively  and  permanently  remitted 
as  by  the  enchanter  Plato.  Our  popular  religion  would 
be  completely  transfigured  and  incalculably  enhanced 
in  its  value  as  a  light  and  a  force  for  the  conduct  of  life 
if  its  ministers  and  adherents  were  disciplined  from 
childhood  in  Plato  as  they  are  in  the  Bible.  They  should 
know  the  words  of  Socrates  as  familiarly  as  they  know 
the  words  of  Jesus. 

It  is  complained  that  ethical  doctrine  is  cold  and 
abstract,  and  that  for  the  purposes  of  religion  a  per- 
sonality is  needed,  in  whom  the  abstract  truth  shall 
be  incarnate,  and  upon  whose  strength  the  wayfaring 
man  may  draw.  One  of  the  virtues  of  the  Platonic 
literature  is  that  it  meets  this  need.  In  the  pages  of 
Plato  we  do  indeed  find  a  person,  as  distinct,  as  original, 
as  inspiring  and  stimulating  as  the  divine  person  whom 
fifty  generations  have  found  in  the  Gospels.  The  com- 
bination in  Plato  of  the  skill  of  the  poet  and  dramatist 
with  an  unexampled  power  of  abstract  thought  consti- 
tutes one  of  the  high-water  marks  of  the  literature  of 
all  time.  How  desperately  difficult  is  the  dialogue  as 
a  literary  vehicle  for  philosophic  teaching  is  demon- 
strated by  the  almost  universal  failure  of  Plato's  imi- 
tators. 

The  Platonic  secret  is  the  possession,  and  the  use  in 
the  service  of  ethical  philosophy,  of  a  power  of  characteri- 
zation equal  to  that  of  a  Shakespeare  or  a  Dickens. 
Without  resorting  to  description,  but  simply  by  placing 
self-disclosing  words  in  the  mouths  of  his  characters, 


158  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

Plato  renders  them  as  vivid  and  as  highly  individualized 
as  those  of  the  greatest  fiction  or  drama.  Think  of  the 
impression  he  gives  of  the  reeling  demigod  Alcibiades 
in  the  Symposium,1  and  of  the  dramatic  way  in  which 
the  picture  of  his  entrance,  "  crowned  with  a  massive 
garland  of  ivy  and  wall-flowers,  and  having  his  head 
flowing  with  ribbons,"  is  timed  to  relax  the  tension 
produced  by  "that  celestial  colloquy  sublime"  with 
which  Socrates  has  just  "strained  to  the  height"  the 
reader's  mental  and  spiritual  powers.  Consider,  again, 
the  way  in  which  the  noble  modesty  and  rare  abilities 
of  Theaetetus  are  anticipated,  and  afterwards  mani- 
fested in  his  own  person.  Or  study  by  the  canons  of 
dramatic  or  fictional  criticism  the  character  of  the 
kindly  old  Crito,  so  loyal  to  his  friend  and  master  that 
he  will  surrender,  though  with  a  breaking  heart,  the 
hope  of  saving  that  master's  life,  rather  than  urge  him 
to  violate  his  conscience.  One  of  the  noblest  literary 
revenges  in  history  is  that  taken  by  Plato  upon  Aris- 
tophanes, by  introducing  that  slanderous  comedian  in 
the  Symposium,  and  placing  upon  his  lips  a  story  2  en- 
tirely in  his  spirit,  but  finer  than  anything  he  could 
himself  have  done. 

Thus  might  one  go  through  the  rich  gallery  of  Plato's 
pictures  of  other  men,  each  depicted  with  some  master- 
touches  that  make  them  living  and  unforgettable.  But 
the  glory  of  them  all  is  gathered  up  and  transcended  in 
the  central  picture  of  Socrates  himself,  the  greatest 
example  in  human  story  of  inflexible  integrity  combined 
with  unfailing  urbanity  and  practical  sagacity.  Socrates 
is  such  a  gentleman  that  any  glimpse  of  him  makes  us 
ashamed  of  our  modern  vulgarity.  In  his  poverty  he 
Sections  212-13.  2  Sections  189-93. 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  SOCRATES  159 

is  richer  than  our  millionaires,  more  majestic  than 
our  kings.  In  his  freedom  from  pedantry  he  puts  to 
shame  many  of  our  educators,  whose  whole  vitality 
is  absorbed  in  a  single  specialism.  Socrates  is  capable 
of  such  subtlety  of  intellectual  construction  and  dis- 
crimination as  human  thought  has  never  surpassed. 
Yet  he  is  the  beloved  boon  companion  of  the  young  men, 
who  are  able  at  once  to  revere  and  to  chaff  him.  And 
which  among  the  modern  thinkers  who  strive  to  be 
impartial  has  ever  rivalled  the  dispassionateness  of  one 
who  (as  we  see  in  the  Crito)  would  not  condescend  to 
twist  an  argument  even  to  save  his  life? 

Addison,  in  one  of  his  charming  essays,  uses  the  phrase, 
"the  divine  Socrates."  1  If  this  epithet  is  not  to  be  an 
empty  word,  it  must  connote,  as  I  have  suggested,  the 
power  of  creating  spiritual  life  in  others.  Such  divinity 
can  no  more  be  denied  to  Socrates  than  to  Jesus.  To 
enter  the  presence  of  the  immortal  Athenian  is  to  be 
made  ashamed  of  all  that  is  low  and  petty  and  self- 
centred.  For  he  is  not  merely  an  example  of  unsur- 
passable human  grandeur,  but  also  a  living  source  of  en- 
noblement to  all  who  approach  him.  He  is,  in  short,  a 
Saviour. 

1  Spectator,  No.  146. 


CHAPTER  VI 

INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS 

THE  time  in  which  we  live  has  one  characteristic  which 
it  shares  in  common  with  all  preceding  periods.  This 
is  the  tendency  to  self-depreciation.  We  hear  on  every 
hand  that  the  age  lacks  inspiration,  and  does  not  com- 
mand the  conditions  which  lead  to  the  emergence  of 
genius  in  any  department.  We  have  fallen,  it  is  said,  on 
a  time  of  machinery  and  mediocrity.  Masters  of  the 
means  of  life  to  a  degree  unparalleled  by  any  former 
epoch,  we  have  lost  sight  of  the  ends  of  life.  Nay,  even 
the  mastery  of  machinery  is  in  great  measure  illusory, 
for  we  tend  ever  more  and  more  to  become  the  slaves 
of  the  great  engines  which  our  hands  have  made.  The 
outward  and  visible  mechanism  is  a  symbol  of  our 
hypnotization  by  the  mechanical  energies  of  life.  We 
have  lost  our  grip  of  the  spirit  as  a  force  and  a  cause  of 
events.  We  regard  ourselves  as  phenomena,  as  effects, 
as  links  in  a  chain,  mere  vehicles  of  forces  which  we  can- 
not control  or  direct. 

Self-depreciation,  however,  on  some  pretext  or  other, 
is,  as  I  have  said,  a  characteristic  of  all  ages.  The  dis- 
paraging contrast  between  our  own  day  and  former 
periods  is  a  part  of  the  perennial  illusion  of  "the  good 
old  times" — those  golden  days  whose  disappearance  has 
been  lamented  by  writers  in  every  age,  from  Homer  to 
our  own.  When  Sir  Owen  Seaman  was  appointed  editor 

of  Punch,  somebody  complained  to  him  that  the  paper 
1 60 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS       161 

was  not  half  so  good  as  it  used  to  be.  He  replied,  "No, 
it  never  was."  The  great  humorist  here  supplied  the 
true  refutation  of  all  pessimistic  comparisons  between 
the  present  and  the  past.  When  we  are  told  that  times 
are  not  so  good  as  formerly,  the  answer  is,  "No,  they 
never  were."  Homer  bewails  the  decadence  of  the  men 
of  his  day  as  compared  with  an  earlier  race,  any  one 
of  whom  could  hurl  a  rock  that  not  three  of  Homer's 
contemporaries  could  lift.  Bacon's  contempt  for  the 
degenerate  dramatic  poetry  of  his  time  is  a  phenomenon 
that  we  do  well  to  remember.  Addison,  writing  in  the 
noonday  of  what  was  afterwards  called  the  Augustan 
age  of  English  literature,  is  full  of  satire  over  the  cor- 
rupt taste  of  his  contemporaries.  The  inspiration  of  an 
age  is  thus  almost  always  concealed  from  those  who  are 
its  chief  embodiments. 

I  propose  in  this  chapter  to  attempt  an  analysis  of  the 
conditions  under  which  what  we  term  inspiration  mani- 
fests itself,  with  a  view  to  arriving,  if  possible,  at  an 
approximate  and  working  definition  of  it.  For  one  of 
our  difficulties  is  the  vagueness  of  the  idea.  Not  knowing 
what  inspiration  substantively  is,  knowing  it  only 
negatively  (that  is,  being  conscious  when  it  is  absent), 
or  only  adjectivally — through  its  effects,  which  fre- 
quently do  not  appear  until  it  is  spent — we  are  unable 
to  interpret  rightly  the  signs  of  its  approach,  or  to  prepare 
the  conditions  which  favour  its  manifestation. 

To  almost  all  of  us,  whether  our  antecedents  be  Chris- 
tian or  Jewish,  the  term  inspiration  still  suggests,  first  of 
all,  the  Bible.  We  were  brought  up  on  the  idea  that 
that  one  book  is  inspired,  in  a  sense  in  which  no  others  are. 
Let  us,  then,  try  to  determine  what  the  inspiration  of  the 
Bible  has  practically  meant  to  those  who  believed  in  it, 


162  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

and  what  is  the  value  of  the  theory  by  which  they  sought 
to  account  for  their  experience. 

The  doctrine  of  Biblical  inspiration  was  not  hit  upon 
by  a  mere  vagary  of  the  human  mind.  There  was  a  solid 
basis  of  experience  out  of  which  it  grew.  The  history  of 
Protestantism  and  Puritanism  convinces  us  that  those 
who  formulated  the  mechanical  doctrine  of  verbal  in- 
fallibility were  driven  to  do  so  by  phenomena  which  cer- 
tainly called  for  some  explanation.  They  had  come  into 
touch  with  a  vitalizing  and  transforming  power  as  a 
result  of  their  devout  study  of  the  Hebrew  books.  The 
martyrs  of  Smithfield,  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  Cromwell's 
Ironsides,  John  Bunyan  and  George  Fox, — all  these  and 
many  others  were  instances  of  the  power  which  somehow 
flowed  from  those  old  pages.  It  was  no  delusion  of  theirs 
that  they  had  been  raised  above  themselves.  They  had 
revalued  all  the  values  of  life.  They  had  been  quickened 
into  a  boundless  humility  towards  the  Moral  Ideal,  which 
they  envisaged  as  a  personal  God,  and  into  a  boundless 
courage  and  self-reliance  in  facing  the  unjust  claims  of 
kings  and  tyrants.  Macaulay  has  well  and  truly  said 
of  the  Puritan  that  "he  prostrated  himself  in  the  dust 
before  his  Maker:  but  he  set  his  foot  on  the  neck  of  his 
king."  1  Verily,  there  was  some  wonderful  power  which 
could  thus  make  martyrs,  heroes,  soldiers  and  statesmen 
out  of  the  lackeys  and  apprentices  of  London,  the  tinkers, 
cobblers  and  hinds  of  the  countryside. 

It  needs  but  slight  study  of  literature  to  enable  us  to 
realize  that  it  was  the  intense  passion  for  justice  of  the 
Hebrew  prophets,  expressed  in  the  burning  eloquence 
of  the  English  version,  and  conned  with  the  reverence 
naturally  accorded  to  what  was  considered  a  divine 
1  Essay  on  Milton. 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS       163 

revelation,  which  thus  entered  into  the  souls  of  men, 
making  the  weak  strong  and  the  strong  stronger,  trans- 
muting the  commonplace  into  the  rare  soul,  and  quicken- 
ing into  genius  and  the  power  of  leadership  characters 
that  without  this  inspiration  would  have  remained 
mediocre. 

The  misfortune  was  that  owing  to  the  very  limited 
literary  experience  of  those  who  underwent  this  trans- 
formation, they  were  able  to  give  only  an  inadequate 
and  misleading  account  of  it.  They  resorted  to  a  theory 
according  to  which  the  Biblical  books  were  inspired, 
but  not  their  writers.  The  old  doctrine  of  the  verbal 
inspiration  and  infallibility  of  the  Bible  means  that  the 
writers  did  not  express  their  selfhood  in  what  they  wrote. 
It  was  not  their  human  souls  that  were  incarnated  in 
these  undying  utterances.  They  functioned  merely  as 
amanuenses  to  a  conscious  intelligence  other  than  their 
own.  Their  highest  achievement  was  a  microscopic 
accuracy  in  transmitting  what  had  thus  been  commu- 
nicated to  them.  They  played  the  part  only  of  steno- 
graphers or  dictaphone  records;  and  it  is  not  customary 
to  speak  of  stenographers  as  inspired,  save  in  a  satirical 
sense. 

Out  of  this  forced  and  unnatural  theory  of  verbal  in- 
spiration there  arose  the  childlike  notion  that  all  the 
statements  of  fact  in  the  Bible  must  necessarily  be  true. 
We  look  back  to-day  upon  this  theory  with  a  certain 
sense  of  amusement,  not  untinctured  with  shame.  It  is 
only  just  to  remind  ourselves,  however,  that  the  essential 
premiss  of  the  theory  in  question  was  accepted  not  only 
by  the  orthodox,  but  also  by  the  iconoclastic  rationalists 
of  the  school  of  Thomas  Paine,  Charles  Bradlaugh,  and 
Robert  Ingersoll,  who  fought  against  them.  The  ortho- 


1 64  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

dox  maintained  (as  we  saw  above,  p.  45  ff.)  a  sort  of  cir- 
cular argument,  to  the  effect  that  every  statement  in  the 
Bible  must  be  true  because  the  Bible  was  inspired;  and, 
conversely,  that  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  was  proved 
by  the  fact  that  all  the  statements  it  contained  were  true. 
The  iconoclasts,  on  the  other  hand,  accepting  the  crite- 
rion of  inspiration  thus  implied,  maintained  that  because 
there  were  errors  of  fact  in  the  Bible  it  could  not  be  in- 
spired. 

It  is  the  naivete  of  this  position  which  strikes  us  to-day. 
We  smile  at  arguments  which  imply  that  if  only  Jonah's 
fish  had  had  a  slightly  larger  throat,  the  critics  could 
comfortably  have  swallowed  the  story  that  it  swallowed 
Jonah;  that  if  only  Noah's  ark  had  been  rather  larger  and 
better  ventilated,  the  story  of  the  Flood  might  have 
stood  as  history;  that  if  the  periods  of  the  first  chapter 
of  Genesis  had  not  been  quite  so  obviously  meant  for 
literal  days,  the  account  of  creation  might  have  passed 
muster.  Such  an  attitude  makes  the  days  of  the  "cudgel 
controversialists"  seem  indefinitely  remote  from  our 
own,  recent  as  they  are  in  fact.  We  feel  about  the  whole 
preposterous  contention  much  as  we  might  feel  about 
a  dispute  concerning  the  inspiration  of  Macbeth,  one 
party  to  which  should  maintain  that  the  play  was  in- 
spired because  all  its  historical  statements  were  true,  the 
other  contending  that  it  could  not  be  so  because  some  of 
its  assertions  were  erroneous.  We  are  amazed  by  the 
ineptitude  of  the  criterion,  and  the  irrelevance  of  the 
whole  discussion.  With  a  wider  literary  experience,  a 
broader  acquaintance  (as  Matthew  Arnold  said)  with 
the  way  the  human  mind  works,  we  assume  without  dis- 
cussion the  principle  that  the  test  of  inspiration  is  the 
effect  of  any  great  literature  in  quickening  the  mind  and 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS       165 

conscience  of  those  who  study  it,  and  in  arousing  them 
in  turn  to  original  activity. 

The  Bible  writers  give  us  scarcely  any  hint  of  what 
their  inspiration  meant  to  them;  but  the  old  mechanical 
view  is  clearly  due  to  a  falsely  literal  interpretation  of 
their  poetic  and  figurative  phrases.  In  one  of  the  few 
places  where  a  Biblical  writer  lets  us  to  some  extent  into 
his  secret,  we  get  an  account  totally  different  from  that 
of  the  amanuensis- theory.  The  writer  of  the  Book  of 
Revelation  tells  us,  indeed,  that  he  was  in  the  Spirit,  and 
that  while  in  the  Spirit  he  was  shown  a  vision  of  the 
celestial  world  and  talked  with  hierarchs  of  the  host  of 
heaven.  By  these  he  was  conducted  and  shown  the 
things  that  must  shortly  come  to  pass.  But  the  words 
in  which  he  was  to  describe  the  vision,  unlike  the  special 
messages  to  the  seven  Churches,  were  in  no  wise  dictated 
to  him.  "What  thou  seest  write  in  a  book,"  says  the 
great  voice,1  but  the  narrator  is  left  to  choose  his  own 
language  for  this  purpose.  He  chose  words  which,  even 
through  the  medium  of  a  translation,  stir  the  blood  after 
nineteen  centuries,  amazing  us  by  their  poignant  elo- 
quence and  by  a  descriptive  power  which  sets  a  new  and 
higher  limit  to  the  known  range  of  literary  possibility. 
Yet  the  work  is  confessedly  that  of  a  man,  who  is  not 
merely  the  amanuensis  of  a  superhuman  intelligence. 
I  am  not,  of  course,  contending  that  we  have  in  Revela- 
tion a  literal  transcript  of  a  subjective  experience.  The 
more  we  allow,  however,  for  the  free  play  of  the  writer's 
poetic  genius,  tfre  more  is  this  view  of  his  inspiration 
strengthened. 

St.  Paul  too  was  a  man  of  visions,  and  occasionally 
he  intimates  that  he  is  voicing  an  authority  higher  than 
*Rev.  i,  ii. 


166  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

his  own,1  though  at  other  times  he  acknowledges  that  he 
is  speaking  out  of  his  own  moral  judgment,2  and  even 
expresses  some  doubt  as  to  whether  he  has  the  sanction 
of  the  Lord.3  But  few,  reading  his  letters,  with  their 
strongly  marked  individuality  of  style  and  their  obvious 
relation  to  the  stormy  incidents  of  his  busy  and  heroic 
career,  can  now  seriously  entertain  the  notion  that  their 
inspiration  emanated  from  any  other  source  than  his  own 
mind  and  experience. 

It  is  the  phrase  of  the  prophets,  "Thus  saith  the  Lord," 
which  has  chiefly  given  rise  to  the  theory  of  mechanical 
and  verbal  inspiration.  When  the  prophet,  by  brooding 
over  the  iniquity  of  his  people  and  musing  deeply  on 
the  principles  and  ideals  which  ought  to  guide  Israel, 
had  attained  to  a  clear  vision  of  the  course  that  should  be 
followed,  he  prefaced  his  appeal  to  his  compatriots  with 
the  words,  "Thus  saith  the  Lord."  We  may  take  our 
choice  between  believing  that  he  meant,  "Thus  saith  the 
universal  moral  judgment,  which  exists  both  in  you 
and  me;  whose  dicta  you  can  verify  by  searching  your 
own  conscience  and  your  own  experience,"  and  believ- 
ing that  he  meant,  "Thus  saith  a  superhuman  and 
supernatural  conscious  intelligence,  which  has  revealed 
to  me  what  I  never  could  have  discovered  for  myself, 
and  what  you  are  bound  to  believe  upon  its  authority, 
without  hope  of  verifying  it."  Which  of  the  two  is  the 
sounder  construction  is  a  question  which  answers  itself 
to  anyone  familiar  with  other  inspired  literatures  as  well 
as  with  the  Bible. 

In  the  writings  of  Plato  we  find  a  most  interesting 
account  of  inspiration,  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  mar- 

1E.  g.,  I  Cor.  vii,  10.          2  Ibid.,  verse  12.  3  Ibid.,  verse  25. 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS      167 

vellous  instances  of  it  which  antiquity  has  bequeathed 
to  us.  Professor  Jowett  has  well  said  of  the  Sympo- 
sium that  of  all  the  works  of  Plato  it  "is  the  most  per- 
fect in  form,  and  may  be  truly  thought  to  contain  more 
than  any  commentator  has  ever  dreamed  of;  or,  as  Goethe 
said  of  one  of  his  own  writings,  more  than  the  author 
himself  knew."  The  Symposium  contains  that  incom- 
parable speech  of  Socrates  which  ostensibly  embodies 
the  substance  of  a  revelation  made  to  him  by  the  wise 
woman  Diotima,  the  prophetess.  Happily,  there  is  no 
narrow-minded  religious  sect  of  Platonists  burning  to 
convince  us  that  this  account  of  the  wise  woman  is 
literal  fact,  and  that  Socrates  was  merely  the  trans- 
mitter of  the  doctrine  of  inspiration  which  his  speech  for- 
mulates. The  substance  of  the  revelation  is,  indeed,  little 
more  than  a  compendium  of  principles  and  doctrines  set 
forth  in  many  other  parts  of  the  Socratic  teaching  as 
conveyed  to  us  by  Plato. 

Its  teaching  is  that  inspiration  is  a  reality, — a  possible 
experience;  yet  one  that  may  come  only  after  the  most 
rigorous  and  persistent  intellectual  discipline,  begun  in 
childhood  and  continued  into  mature  life.  The  child  has 
to  start  by  concentrating  his  attention  upon  some  one 
beautiful  form;  then  he  must  study  many  such  forms. 
He  will  thus  become  aware  of  the  identity  of  the  beauty 
embodied  in  them  all.  Gradually,  after  the  study  of  fair 
forms,  he  can  proceed  to  the  contemplation  of  fair  ideas 
and  of  institutions  animated  by  them :  and  at  last  it  may 
be  his  good  hap  to  have  the  vision  of  Beauty  absolute 
and  eternal  burst  upon  his  view.  Such,  says  Socrates, 
is  the  only  possible  means  of  attaining  to  inspiration; 
and  such  is  the  divine  reward  awaiting  him  who  has  fol- 
lowed the  gleam  "down  the  nights  and  down  the  days," 


168  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

and  "  down  the  arches  of  the  years";  who  has  toiled  up- 
ward in  the  night,  and  laboured  over  the  crags  and  steeps 
of  the  mountainous  years,  until  he  attains  the  summit 
whence  alone  may  be  beheld  "the  high-heaven  dawn  of 
more  than  mortal  day."  I  cannot  forgo  the  pleasure  of 
quoting  the  closing  sentences  of  this  speech  of  Socrates: — 

But  what  if  man  had  eye  to  see  the  true  beauty — the  divine 
beauty,  I  mean,  pure  and  clear  and  unalloyed,  not  clogged 
with  the  pollutions  of  mortality,  and  all  the  colours  and  van- 
ities of  human  life;  thither  looking,  and  holding  converse 
with  the  true  beauty,  divine  and  simple,  and  bringing  into 
being  and  educating  true  creations  of  virtue,  and  not  idols 
only?  Do  you  not  see  that  in  that  communion  only,  behold- 
ing beauty  with  the  eye  of  the  mind,  he  will  be  enabled  to 
bring  forth,  not  images  of  beauty,  but  realities;  for  he  has 
hold  not  of  an  image  but  of  a  reality;  and,  bringing  forth  and 
educating  true  virtue,  to  become  the  friend  of  God  and  be 
immortal,  if  mortal  man  may.  Would  that  be  an  ignoble 
life?  1 

It  would  be  cruel  to  elaborate  the  comparison  which 
inevitably  suggests  itself  between  this  passage,  from  what 
has  ordinarily  been  regarded  as  profane  and  secular 
literature,  and  such  books  as  Daniel  and  Esther,  which 
are  included  in  the  canon  of  works  divinely  inspired. 

In  Plato's  Republic  this  theory  of  inspiration  is  de- 
picted even  more  minutely  in  the  celebrated  allegory 
of  the  cave  men,  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  book. 
The  native  state  of  man  is  as  that  of  chained  dwellers 
in  an  underground  den,  which  is  lighted  only  from  be- 
hind. These  subterranean  prisoners  can  see  nothing  but 
the  shadows  before  their  eyes;  hence  they  mistake  the 
1  Symposium,  §§  211-12. 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS       169 

shadows  for  realities.  It  may,  however,  be  the  hap  of  one 
of  them  to  break  free  from  his  chains,  to  turn  his  back 
upon  the  shadows,  and  to  set  out  upon  the  toilsome 
steep  that  leads  upwards  to  the  source  of  light.  His  eyes 
will  at  first  be  dazzled,  but  gradually  he  will  become 
capable  of  seeing  those  objects  which  had  cast  the 
shadows  of  his  previous  experience.  After  a  long  adapta- 
tion to  his  new  surroundings,  he  will  become  capable 
of  beholding  the  moon  and  stars,  and  finally  of  "kindling 
his  undazzled  eye  at  the  full  midday  beam." 

Here  is  most  beautifully  expressed  the  essential  para- 
dox of  the  Platonic  doctrine.  The  struggle,  the  dis- 
cipline, the  scaling  of  the  heights, — this  is  the  indis- 
pensable preparation  for  the  vision;  yet,  when  that  vision 
comes,  it  is  of  the  nature  of  revelation.  It  is  not  the 
consequence  of  what  the  striver  has  gone  through,  nor  is 
it  guaranteed  to  him.  He  may  or  may  not  attain  to  the 
beatific  vision.  Certainly  he  will  not  without  the  long 
preparation;  that  is  indispensable  in  any  case:  but  he 
may  not,  even  after  he  has  undergone  it.  The  view 
from  the  mountain-top  is  not  the  logical  or  necessary 
result  of  the  climb:  but  without  the  climb  it  never  can 
be  seen. 

This  intense  rationalism  of  Plato  is  most  unwelcome 
to  the  mental  indolence  of  our  times.  We  are  afflicted 
with  a  species  of  Cubists  and  Futurists,  not  alone  in  art, 
but  in  every  department  of  human  activity.  Our  ears 
are  assailed  by  the  doctrine  which  opposes  inspira- 
tion to  mental  effort,  and  sets  up  a  false  and  danger- 
ous antithesis  between  intellection  and  intuition.  This 
school  takes  in  vain  the  name  of  Bergson,  and  professes 
to  have  his  authority  for  disparaging  hard  thinking  and 
hard  study.  There  is  in  truth  no  justification  for  this  to 


1 70  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

be  found  in  Bergson's  works.  He  has  proudly  and  rightly 
claimed  that  no  philosophy  gives  to  the  method,  spirit 
and  results  of  science  a  higher  value  than  his  own  as- 
cribes to  them.  But  because  he  has  emphasized  the 
extra-logical  factors  in  the  human  spirit,  and  has  in- 
sisted that  a  full  and  true  vision  of  reality  cannot  be 
attained  by  the  logical  process  alone,  he  is  seized  upon 
by  those  who  desire  to  be  absolved  from  the  task  of  hard 
thinking  and  scientific  work.  They  seek  to  make  him 
the  sponsor  of  an  anti-intellectualism  which  is  suicidal, — 
which,  indeed,  would  prevent  the  development  of  his 
own  philosophical  method,  as  well  as  of  every  other 
worthy  human  enterprise. 

The  common  shibboleth  of  the  anti-rationalists  in 
painting  and  poetry,  as  well  as  in  other  fields,  is  a  variant 
of  the  special  doctrine  of  Quakerism.  It  is  possible 
that  they  may  feel  shocked  or  intellectually  insulted  by 
such  an  assertion.  Yet  when  they  talk,  as  they  do,  of 
expressing  oneself,  irrespective  of  social  consequences, 
they  are  only  parodying  the  Quaker  notion  of  that  Inner 
Light  which  is.  directly  kindled  by  the  Spirit.  They 
forget,  too,  that  before  you  can  express  yourself,  you 
must  first  acquire  a  self  that  is  worth  expressing;  and 
they  ignore  the  difficulty  of  developing  such  selfhood. 

It  is  not  for  a  moment  to  be  questioned  that  the  in- 
spired artist  can  and  rightly  does  transcend  the  prescrip- 
tions of  technique.  It  is,  indeed,  his  breaches  of  rule 
that  create  rules  for  his  successors.  His  felicitous  de- 
partures from  convention  become  a  new  technique  for 
after-times.  But  one  condition  of  transcending  an 
established  artistic  standard  is  that  a  man  shall  first 
have  mastered  it;  and  this  can  only  be  done  through  in- 
tense labour. 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS       171 

An  amusing  illustration  of  this  fact  was  once  brought 
to  a  friend  of  mine  by  a  young  lady  who  sought  his  judg- 
ment upon  a  poem  she  had  written.  It  was  a  poem  of 
the  vers  libre  order.  It  reminded  him  irresistibly  of  the 
description  of  the  earth  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis, 
in  that  it  was  not  only  without  form,  but  also  void. 
Wishing  to  be  truthful  as  well  as  polite,  my  friend  ven- 
tured the  suggestion  that  there  are  two  possible  reasons 
for  ignoring  technique:  the  one,  because  you.  are  above 
it;  the  other,  because  you  can't  do  it:  and  that  her  poem 
left  in  his  mind  a  certain  doubt  as  to  which  of  these  two 
reasons  had  actuated  her. 

The  refutation  of  the  lazy  modern  theory  that  in- 
spiration is  independent  of  intellectual  effort  is  supplied 
by  a  mere  glance  at  the  life  and  work  of  any  great  creative 
artist.  Think  of  Shakespeare's  years  of  apprenticeship, 
when,  in  addition  to  direct  work  in  every  department 
of  practical  stagecraft,  he  whetted  the  edge  of  his  poetic 
power  upon  all  sorts  of  old  plays,  inserting  characters 
and  incidents  to  suit  the  taste  of  the  London  tradesmen 
and  their  wives  and  'prentice  boys,  as  well  as  his  own. 

I  would  prefer,  however,  to  cite  an  instance  which  to 
most  readers  is  unfortunately  less  familiar.  We  have 
almost  forgotten  that  Milton  is  not  only  a  greater  poet 
even  than  Shakespeare  in  respect  of  sheer  sublimity 
(though,  to  be  sure,  a  lesser  poet  in  respect  of  versatility 
and  insight  into  human  character),  but  also  the  writer 
of  the  very  greatest  prose  in  the  English  language.  Even 
those  who  study  him  in  high  school  or  college  generally 
become  acquainted  only  with  fragments  of  his  prose 
work,  particularly  the  Areopagitica.  This  is  a  great  mis- 
fortune; for  in  the  tomes  that  we  do  not  read,  despite 
the  seeming  obsoleteness  of  many  of  their  themes,  there 


172  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

are  scores  of  passages  full  of  moral  wisdom,  lofty  thinking, 
and  a  majestic  eloquence  with  which  nothing  outside  the 
English  Bible  is  worthy  to  be  compared.1 

Now,  making  every  allowance  for  Milton's  exceptional 
native  endowment  that  the  anti-intellectual  inspira- 
tionist  cares  to  insist  upon,  it  remains  true  that  his 
mastery  in  prose  and  verse  was  achieved  only  by  the 
deliberate  dedication  of  his  entire  life  to  his  vocation. 
Even  from  his  Cambridge  days  he  was  planning  the  epic 
which  he  did  not  write  until  his  old  age.  After  a  period  of 
quiet  retirement  in  the  country  followed  by  Continental 
travels,  he  felt  bound  in  conscience  to  turn  aside  from 
his  poetic  projects  and  to  take  a  share  in  the  great  battle 
for  mental  and  political  freedom  which  was  then  breaking 
out  in  England.  He  could  not  refuse  to  write  in  the 
cause  of  religious  liberty,  though  the  controversy  was 
distasteful  to  him.  By  reason  of  his  exceptional  scholar- 
ship and  his  rare  powers  of  expression,  his  conscience 
challenged  him  to  do  a  work  which  the  hour  demanded, 
and  which  he  more  than  other  men  was  equipped  to 
perform.  Yet  he  cannot  conceal  his  bent,  or  abstain  from 
the  topic  that  really  interests  him.  In  the  midst  of  a 
volume  of  argumentation  about  the  government  of  the 

1 1  am  reminded  that  I  am  here  repeating  a  lament  voiced  ninety 
years  ago  by  Macaulay:  "It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  prose  writings  of 
Milton  should,  in  our  time,  be  so  little  read.  As  compositions,  they 
deserve  the  attention  of  every  man  who  wishes  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  full  power  of  the  English  language.  They  abound  with  passages 
compared  with  which  the  finest  declamations  of  Burke  sink  into  in- 
significance. They  are  a  perfect  field  of  cloth-of-gold.  The  style  is 
stiff  with  gorgeous  embroidery.  Not  even  in  the  earlier  books  of  the 
Paradise  Lost  has  the  great  poet  ever  risen  higher  than  in  those  parts 
of  his  controversial  works  in  which  his  feelings,  excited  by  conflict,  find 
a  vent  in  bursts  of  devotional  and  lyric  rapture.  It  is,  to  borrow  his  own 
majestic  language,  'a  sevenfold  chorus  of  hallelujahs  and  harping  sym- 
phonies.'"— Essay  on  Milton  (1825). 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS      173 

Church  by  bishops,  he  suddenly  interpolates  an  auto- 
biographical fragment,  which  to  us  i&  worth  more  than 
all  the  rest  of  the  book,  though  he  probably  inserted  it 
with  reluctance  and  with  a  strong  sense  of  its  irrelevance. 
In  this  he  explains  how  it  is  that  he,  who  had  dedicated 
his  life  to  poetry,  felt  constrained  to  join  in  the  hurly- 
burly  of  theological  disputes.  He  also  tells  the  reader 
that  the  work  he  still  hopes  to  achieve  is  such  as  cannot 
be  done  by  a  young  man,  because  of  the  long  and  arduous 
preparation  which  is  an  indispensable  preliminary  to  it. 
Note  the  spirit  in  which  he  tells  of  his  poetic  vocation, 
and  his  sense  of  the  way  to  equip  himself  for  it.  He 
speaks  first  of  "an  inward  prompting,  which  now  grew 
daily  upon  me,  that  by  labour  and  intense  study  (which 
I  take  to  be  my  portion  in  this  life),  joined  with  the 
strong  propensity  of  nature,  I  might  perhaps  leave  some- 
thing so  written  to  after-times  as  they  should  not  will- 
ingly let  it  die."  And  a  little  later  he  thus  pledges  him- 
self to  his  contemporaries: — 

Neither  do  I  think  it  shame  to  covenant  with  any  knowing 
reader,  that  for  some  few  years  yet  I  may  go  on  trust  with 
him  toward  the  payment  of  what  I  am  now  indebted,  as 
being  a  work  not  to  be  raised  from  the  heat  of  youth,  or  the 
vapours  of  wine;  like  that  which  flows  at  waste  from  the  pen 
of  some  vulgar  amourist,  or  the  trencher  fury  of  a  rhyming 
parasite;  nor  to  be  obtained  by  the  invocation  of  Dame 
Memory  and  her  siren  daughters,  but  by  devout  prayer  to 
that  eternal  Spirit  who  can  enrich  with  all  utterance  and 
knowledge,  and  sends  out  his  seraphim,  with  the  hallowed  fire 
of  his  altar,  to  touch  and  purify  the  lips  of  whom  he  pleases. 
To  this  must  be  added  industrious  and  select  reading,  steady 
observation,  insight  into  all  seemly  and  generous  arts  and 
affairs;  till  which  in  some  measure  be  compassed,  at  mine 


174  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

own  peril  and  cost,  I  refuse  not  to  sustain  this  expectation 
from  as  many  as  are  not  loth  to  hazard  so  much  credulity 
upon  the  best  pledges  that  I  can  give  them.1 

Such  was  the  discipline,  rigorously  continued  from 
childhood  almost  into  old  age,  which  led  to  the  in- 
spiration for  Paradise  Lost,  Paradise  Regained,  and 
Samson  Agonistes.  The  notion  that  this  intense  in- 
tellectual preparation  can  be  dispensed  with  would  be 
rightly  described  as  an  imbecility  if  it  were  not  even 
more  obviously  an  attempt  to  find  a  justification  for 
indolence.  So  far  from  those  who  preach  it  leaving 
something  that  after-times  will  not  willingly  let  die,  it  is 
virtually  certain  that  they  can  produce  nothing  that  the 
future  will  be  willing  to  let  live; — unless,  indeed,  we  are 
passing  into  a  period  of  barbarism,  and  the  world  has  to 
wait  another  thousand  years  for  a  rebirth  of  true  civiliza- 
tion and  culture. 

Our  own  great  Emerson  is  one  of  the  many  master- 
spirits who  have  endorsed  the  Platonic  paradox  that 
inspiration  can  only  follow  upon  intense  labour,  and  yet 
is  in  no  wise  guaranteed  by  it.  He  also,  out  of  his  own 
experience,  is  able  to  testify  to  the  truth  that  when  the 
inspiration  comes  it  is  of  the  nature  of  a  revelation, — a 
disclosure  of  something  unanticipated,  unpredictable. 
"We  distinguish  the  announcements  of  the  soul,  its 
manifestations  of  its  own  nature,  by  the  term  Revelation. 
These  are  always  attended  by  the  emotion  of  the  sub- 
lime." 2  And  elsewhere  he  writes: — 

When  good  is  near  you,  when  you  have  life  in  yourself,  it  is 

1  Milton,   The  Reason  of  Church-Government  urged  against  Prelaty, 
Intro,  to  Book  ii  (1641). 

2  Emerson,  The  Over-Soul,  in  Collected  Works,  vol.  ii,  p.  280. 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS       175 

not  by  any  known  or  accustomed  way;  you  shall  not  discern 
the  footprints  of  any  other;  you  shall  not  see  the  face  of  man; 
you  shall  not  hear  any  name; — the  way,  the  thought,  the 
good,  shall  be  wholly  strange  and  new.  It  shall  exclude 
example  and  experience.  You  take  the  way  from  man,  not 
to  man.  All  persons  that  ever  existed  are  its  forgotten 
ministers.1 

In  the  same  spirit  Matthew  Arnold,  who  also  had 
bought  his  inspiration  at  the  price  of  years  of  labour, 
acknowledges  the  uncertainty  of  the  celestial  visitant. 
When  all  the  conditions  for  it  are  prepared,  it  may  or  may 
not  come: — 

Our  conduct  is  capable,  irrespective  of  what  we  can  our- 
selves certainly  answer  for,  of  almost  infinitely  different  de- 
grees of  force  and  energy  in  the  performance  of  it,  of  lucidity 
and  vividness  in  the  perception  of  it,  of  fulness  in  the  satis- 
faction from  it;  and  these  degrees  may  vary  from  day  to 
day,  and  quite  incalculably.  Facilities  and  felicities, — whence 
do  they  come?  suggestions  and  stimulations, — where  do  they 
tend?  Hardly  a  day  passes  but  we  have  some  experience 
of  them.  And  so  Henry  More  was  led  to  say  "that  there 
was  something  about  us  that  knew  better,  often,  what  we 
would  be  at  than  we  ourselves."  2 

This  familiar  fact  of  experience  Arnold  used  as  one  of 
the  chief  points  in  his  demonstration  of  our  dependence 
upon  a  "Power  not  ourselves."  He  reminds  us  how  such 
a  thing  as  a  neuralgia,  which  on  one  day  seems  an  in- 
superable obstacle  to  any  sort  of  effective  work,  will  on 
another  day  act  as  a  spur,  driving  us  to  more  than  we 
could  attempt  without  it.  Such  is  the  uniform  experience 
of  all  whose  inspiration  is  real.  "The  spirit  bloweth 

1  Self -Reliance,  ibid.,  p.  68.  2  Literature  and  Dogma,  chapter  i. 


176  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

where  it  listeth" — and  when  it  listeth.  There  is  no 
royal  road  to  inspiration  and  the  awakening  of  genius. 
The  gods  give  not  to  those  who  have  not  laboured  to  win 
their  favour;  but,  even  among  those  who  have,  they  pick 
and  choose  in  a  fashion  that  to  us  seems  arbitrary. 

There  is,  after  all,  no  mystery  here;  or,  to  be  more 
exact,  there  is  no  greater  mystery  here  than  on  the  lower 
and  more  familiar  planes  of  life's  activities.  Every 
athlete  knows  how  incalculable  is  the  thing  called 
"form,"  even  after  the  trainer's  regimen  has  been 
scrupulously  followed.  Every  singer  or  actor  or  public 
speaker  can  testify  to  the  same  experience.  No  doubt 
there  is,  here  as  elsewhere,  a  definite  correlation  between 
physical  and  psychic  conditions;  only  it  is  so  obscure  that 
it  has  not  hitherto  been  ascertained.  Consider,  too,  the 
element  of  what  is  called  chance  in  the  field  of  invention 
and  scientific  discovery.  Why  is  it  that  of  two  men  who 
seem  equally  well  equipped  and  equally  gifted  by  nature, 
one  will  hit  upon  a  revolutionary  discovery  or  an  epoch- 
making  invention  and  not  the  other,  even  though  both 
are  giving  the  same  amount  and  degree  of  attention  to 
the  same  subject-matter? 

These  facts,  whether  in  regard  to  poetic  inspiration,  to 
scientific  discovery,  or  to  what  is  called  "form"  on  the 
cricket-field,  attenuate  the  optimistic  certainty  which 
was  formerly  entertained,  particularly  in  regard  to 
physical  science,  that  the  so-called  Baconian  method  of 
observation  and  induction  was  an  infallible  means  of 
arriving  at  rich  discoveries.  We  find  this  idea  surviving 
into  the  nineteenth  century,  and  haunting  the  minds  of 
many  capable  thinkers.  Nor  must  we  for  a  moment  for- 
get or  under-estimate  the  invaluable  discoveries  which 
have  been  made  under  its  influence.  Our  debt  to  empiri- 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS       177 

cal  science  is  inexhaustible.  The  point,  however,  that 
needs  to  be  borne  in  mind,  especially  by  young  people 
who  are  preparing  for  a  scientific  career,  is  that  the  mere 
routine  grind  of  the  experimental  method,  though  in- 
dispensable to  new  discovery,  is  no  unfailing  guarantee 
of  it.  There  is  always  the  incalculable  factor  of  the  ob- 
server's inspiration.  To  remember  this  is  the  way  to 
escape  discouragement  and  to  sustain  hope  through 
many  a  weary  hour  of  labour. 

The  truth  in  this  matter  has  been  distorted  for  us  by 
the  fact  that  the  moment  a  scientific  worker  has  a  new 
revelation  he  proceeds  to  invent  a  process  of  argument, 
which  he  offers  to  us  as  the  means  by  which  he  has 
arrived  at  his  discovery.  He  himself  speedily  overlooks 
the  fact  that  his  argument  is  even  more  of  an  invention 
than  the  thing  he  has  hit  upon.  It  is  a  method  rather  of 
hiding  his  tracks  than  of  revealing  them.  Of  course,  his 
deception  of  us  and  of  himself  is  completely  unconscious. 
When  one  makes  a  discovery,  one  has  to  correlate  it  by 
reasoning  with  the  rest  of  one's  knowledge.  But  the 
psychological  process  of  discovery  is  one  in  which  the 
conclusion  invariably  comes  before  the  premisses.  You 
first  catch  your  hare,  and  then  you  proceed  to  cook  it. 
First  you  have  your  revelation,  and  then  you  frame  a 
train  of  reasoning  to  legitimatize  it  among  the  family  of 
things  known. 

My  argument  thus  far,  if  it  has  succeeded  at  all,  has 
established  two  points:  first,  that  inspiration,  though  a 
reality,  is  an  incalculable  factor,  a  visitant  apparently 
from  outside  oneself,  upon  whose  coming  any  worthy 
achievement  depends.  The  second  is  that  the  severest 
and  most  intense  discipline  is  an  indispensable  pre- 


1 78  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

requisite  for  the  experience  of  inspiration.  This  holds 
universally,  whether  in  regard  to  the  attainment  of  reli- 
gious truth,  scientific  discovery,  mechanical  invention, 
artistic  felicity,  or  even  unwonted  success  in  gymnastics 
or  athletics.  A  third  point  upon  which  I  must  dwell  for 
a  moment  is  the  fact  that  the  supreme  condition  for 
experiencing  inspiration  is  contact  with  the  common 
life,  or  social  co-operation  with  others  in  concentration 
upon  the  tasks  of  the  common  life. 

There  is  in  the  writings  of  Emerson  a  strain  of  in- 
dividualism which  would  seem  to  contradict  the  pro- 
position I  have  just  advanced.  His  notion  seems  to  be 
that  the  altitudes  of  life  are  always  solitary;  that  "we 
descend  to  meet";  that  when  on  quest  for  inspiration  we 
"take  the  way  from  man,  not  to  man."  Any  student 
of  the  facts  of  Emerson's  life,  however,  will  admit  that 
my  contention  is  consistent  with  them,  if  not  with 
Emerson's  theory.  The  impulse  that  drives  the  thinker 
into  the  wilderness  is  one  which  the  common  life  has 
stirred  within  him;  and  that  visitant  whom  he  meets  in 
the  solitude  is  not  indeed  any  man's  individual  selfhood, 
but  it  is  the  social  self,  the  General  Will.  This  produces 
a  quickening  of  the  mental  activity  on  which  the  thinker 
has  previously  concentrated,  by  bringing  it  to  the  focal 
point  and  preventing  attention  from  being  dissipated 
upon  extraneous  matters. 

Thus  the  mental  activity  of  Emerson,  the  individualist, 
clearly  springs  out  of  his  experience  with  such  groups  of 
people  as  those  to  whom  he  ministered  as  a  Unitarian 
pastor  in  Boston.  To  these  groups  most  of  his  great 
essays  were  first  read,  having  been  written  in  response 
to  requests  from  them.  The  iron  string  in  Emerson — 
the  self-reliance,  the  defiance  of  convention  and  opinion — 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS      179 

is  his  reaction  to  the  demand  that  he  should  comply  with 
the  standards  of  an  orthodoxy  none  the  less  narrow  and 
stereotyped  because  it  was  that  of  a  little  group  of  rela- 
tively advanced  thinkers.  It  was  indeed  Emerson's 
own  Unitarianism  which  induced  his  inadequate  interpre- 
tation of  his  experience.  Through  concentrating  upon 
unity,  he  forgot  the  multiplicity  in  unity.  He  did  not 
apprehend  the  true  doctrine  of  the  Trinity;  hence  his 
Over-Soul  apparently  springs  from  nowhere,  and  is  an 
anarchic  and  unaccountable  manifestation.  The  Over- 
Soul  is,  in  truth,  the  common  mind  of  two  or  more  per- 
sons animated  by  an  identical  principle.  This  is  the  ex- 
periential truth  in  the  antique  doctrine  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  proceedeth  from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  It 
embodies  the  common  rational  nature  of  many  men,  and 
consequently  always  manifests  itself  as  a  third  factor, 
mightier  than  any  of  the  individuals  it  inspires. 

The  facts  which  even  Emerson's  life  forces  upon  our  at- 
tention are  more  clearly  exemplified  in  the  genesis  of  the 
great  literatures  of  Israel  and  Greece.  Nothing  could  be 
clearer  than  that  the  Hebrew  prophecy  and  psalmody 
grow  out  of  the  common  mind  of  the  Jewish  people  and 
result  from  the  intense  devotion  of  their  most  sensitive 
souls  to  the  exigencies  which  the  nation  had  to  encounter. 
The  prophet  is  always  of  the  type  of  Isaiah,  Jeremiah, 
and  Joan  of  Arc :  a  politician,  inspired  by  patriotism.  The 
powers  developed  through  years  of  concentration  enable 
him  to  see  the  course  that  his  people  should  take,  to 
judge  what  is  amiss  in  their  conduct  and  in  their  policy. 
When  the  vision  becomes  intense  and  luminous,  when 
the  certitude  made  poignant  by  love  of  country  and  love 
of  righteousness  has  reached  its  zenith,  he  bursts  out 
with  counsel  or  condemnation  in  the  name  of  the  Lord. 


l8o  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

The  social  source  of  inspiration  was  clear  to  the  Greek 
thinkers.  Aristotle,  at  the  outset  of  his  Politics,  insists 
upon  the  precedence  of  society  over  the  individual, 
and  the  dependence  of  the  individual  upon  society. 
He  that  is  so  complete  in  himself  as  not  to  need  social 
reinforcement  and  sustentation  is  not  a  man,  says 
Aristotle,  but  either  a  beast  or  a  god.  Socrates  knew  that 
the  philosophy  to  which  he  devoted  his  life  could  grow 
only  out  of  continuous  contact  with  the  minds  of  other 
human  beings.  Despite  his  belief  in  the  inward  monitor, 
he  was  not  accustomed  to  go  to  the  solitudes  to  listen  for 
its  promptings.  His  talk  with  Phaedrus  under  the  plane- 
tree  by  the  banks  of  the  Ilissus  was  a  rare  departure  from 
his  customary  haunting  of  the  Athenian  streets.  He 
seldom  or  never  went  outside  the  walls  of  the  city.  The 
trees,  he  said,  had  nothing  to  teach  him.  He  was  willing, 
however,  to  spend  whole  days  and  nights  in  conversation 
with  men  immeasurably  his  inferiors,  since  he  knew  that 
it  is  the  clash  of  mind  upon  mind  which  strikes  the  spark 
of  new  truth  that  blazes  up  into  the  light  of  further 
vision.  Thus  the  great  Platonic  revelation,  as  divine  as 
any  that  came  to  the  Hebrews,  is  the  outgrowth  of  one 
school  and  the  inspiration  of  another. 

Milton,  although  he  had  all  the  characteristics  of  the 
mental  aristocrat,  is,  no  less  evidently  than  Plato,  a 
product  of  social  quickening.  In  the  case  of  his  prose 
work  this  is  self-evident.  Almost  all  of  it  is  controversial : 
that  is,  it  grows  out  of  the  exigencies  of  a  time  when  the 
whole  of  England  was  divided  into  two  schools  of  reli- 
gious and  political  thought,  which  were  in  constant  con- 
flict over  a  long  period  of  years.  He  begins  with  a 
treatise  Of  Reformation  in  England,  and  proceeds  with 
others  on  Church  Government.  He  next  takes  up 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS      181 

the  cudgels  in  behalf  of  liberty  of  thought  and  publica- 
tion, seeking  to  rescue  it  from  the  tyranny  of  the  "new 
presbyter,"  who  had  promptly  shown  himself  to  be  only  a 
fresh  epiphany  of  the  "old  priest."  Later  he  controverts 
the  book  forged  in  the  name  of  the  executed  king  Charles 
I,  and  defends  the  people  of  England  against  foreign 
criticism  of  their  action  in  shedding  the  blood  of  the 
Lord's  Anointed.  Among  the  latest  of  his  prose  writings 
are  his  tracts  on  A  Ready  and  Easy  Way  to  Establish 
a  Free  Commonwealth,  and  on  The  Likeliest  Means 
to  Remove  Hirelings  out  of  the  Church.  From  first  to 
last,  it  is  a  splendid  manifestation  of  the  interaction 
between  a  superbly  gifted  soul  and  that  general  soul 
which  environed  him  and  had  sent  him  forth. 

If  it  be  urged  that  what  is  true  of  Milton's  prose  is  not 
true  of  his  poetry,  I  would  answer  that  the  subjects  of  his 
three  longest  poems  alone  suffice  to  prove  my  contention. 
Why  should  he  have  chosen  to  write  of  Paradise  Lost 
and  Paradise  Regained,  save  for  the  fact  that  the  run 
of  his  attention  was  conditioned  by  that  of  the  party  with 
which  he  had  co-operated?  His  age  was  the  century 
of  Puritanism,  of  Hebraism,  of  full-blown  Protestantism, 
with  its  mechanical  scheme  of  salvation.  It  was  the 
concentration  of  the  common  mind  on  these  ideas  that 
caused  the  concentration  upon  them  of  the  mind  of 
Milton.  By  native  temperament  he  was  rather  Greek 
than  Hebrew,  and  he  expressed  his  own  bent  much  more 
clearly  in  the  Allegro,  the  Penseroso,  and  the  Comus 
than  in  the  fairy-tale  of  Adam  and  the  myth  of  the 
Temptation  of  Christ. 

The  proof  that  inspiration  can  come  only  after  intense 
study  can  be  given  negatively  as  well  as  positively.  The 
latter  side  of  the  argument  I  have  attempted  to  present 


182  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

by  instancing  the  apprenticeship  of  the  greatest  minds. 
The  former  can  be  made  evident  by  considering  the  in- 
spirations foisted  upon  the  world  by  people  who  have 
not  undergone  the  hard  toil  of  preparation.  They  are 
in  general  worthless.  This  is  the  essential  defect  in  our 
modern  habit  of  mental  laziness,  which  opposes  intuition 
to  intellect  and  disparages  reasoning  as  inimical  to  in- 
spiration. Consider  the  fantastic  result  of  the  Mormon 
attempt  to  produce  a  new  religion  on  the  lines  of  the 
theory  of  supernaturalism  invented  to  account  for  the 
revelation  given  to  the  Hebrews.  Whoever  has  read  the 
Book  of  Mormon  knows  that  the  only  good  things  it  con- 
tains are  its  extensive  plagiarisms  from  the  Bible.  What- 
ever has  been  concocted  by  its  author  under  the  in- 
fluence of  his  inspiration  is  of  no  value. 

Christian  Science  is  not  morally  and  intellectually 
defective  in  the  same  sense  or  to  the  same  degree  as 
Mormonism.  Nor  does  the  juxtaposition  of  a  criticism 
of  Mrs.  Eddy's  cult  with  that  of  Joseph  Smith  imply 
any  invidious  comparison.  Yet  the  philosophic  feeble- 
ness both  of  Christian  Science  and  of  that  schism  from 
it  called  the  Science  of  Being,  are  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  founders  of  these  cults  have  misunderstood  the  na- 
ture of  inspiration.  They  discounted  intellectual  work. 
They  cultivated  a  passive  resignation  to  the  dictates  of 
the  spiritual  visitant.  They  reproduced  the  phenomenon 
of  "speaking  with  tongues,"  against  which  St.  Paul's 
common  sense  forced  him  to  protest.  The  result  is  that 
their  books  are  a  mere  mass  of  words,  darkening  counsel 
without  knowledge.  They  have  seized  upon  a  fragment 
of  truth  and  imagined  that  it  fills  the  universe.  They 
have  converted  this  half-truth  into  a  whole  error  through 
the  omission  of  its  complementary  truth.  By  the  over- 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS      183 

emphasis  of  their  fragment  of  truth  they  have  succeeded 
only  in  setting  up  a  religion  for  invalids.  What  the  world 
needs  is  a  religion  for  those  who  do  not  need  to  waste  their 
time  in  feeling  their  muscles  and  taking  their  tempera- 
ture, but  are  free  to  do  battle  with  those  social  evils,  the 
existence  of  which  Christian  Science  very  unwisely 
denies. 

The  necessity  for  mental  discipline  as  a  propsedeutic 
to  inspiration  is  illustrated  also  in  the  history  of  the 
Society  of  Friends.  That  noble  movement  grew  out  of  the 
same  stirring  activity  of  the  social  mind  which  produced 
the  prose  of  Milton.  George  Fox's  intellectual  activity, 
though  narrow  and  one-sided,  was  intense  and  continu- 
ous. The  most  eminent  of  the  early  Quakers,  such  men  as 
Barclay  and  Penn,  were  learned  beyond  the  average, 
according  to  the  standards  of  their  time.  Unfortu- 
nately the  Quaker  conviction  of  the  indispensableness  of 
the  Inner  Light  led  to  the  error  of  confusing  the  indis- 
pensable with  the  all-sufficient.  It  was  forgotten  that, 
while  water  is  necessary  to  life,  yet  one  cannot  live  by 
water  alone.  The  Inner  Light,  which  seems  to  wax  and 
wane  independently  of  the  will,  cannot  even  begin  to 
shine  into  the  dark  places  unless  it  has  been  prepared  for 
"by  labour  and  intense  study."  The  Quakers  made  a 
mistake  in  their  refusal  to  establish  a  regular  ministry. 
It  is  not  enough  to  wait  for  the  Spirit;  one  has  to  make 
ready  for  its  coming.  The  disparagement  of  conscious 
effort  in  these  matters  is  a  part  of  the  general  blunder 
of  supernaturalism. 

The  most  elaborate  philosophy  of  inspiration  current 
to-day  is  that  of  M.  Bergson,  which,  as  already  indicated, 
is  being  wrongly  used  to  disparage  intellect  and  intellec- 
tual discipline.  M.  Bergson  has  sought  to  do  justice 


184  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

to  the  fact  of  inspiration,  to  admit  it  among  the  other 
truths  of  our  mental  and  psychic  life.  In  order  to  do  this, 
he  was  compelled  to  attempt  a  definition  and  demarca- 
tion of  the  function  of  the  discursive  intellect.  Now  to 
show  that  there  are  limits  to  any  special  activity  is  not 
in  the  least  to  disparage  the  activity  within  those  limits. 
To  admit  the  existence  of  art  as  well  as  science  is  not  to 
attack  science.  To  say  that  the  artist  reaches  his  results 
by  a  course  different  from  that  of  the  man  of  science 
(or  at  least  from  that  which  the  man  of  science  is 
generally  supposed  to  follow)  is  no  reflection  either 
upon  the  artist's  results  or  those  of  the  scientific 
worker. 

This  is  really  what  Bergson  has  done.  The  head 
and  front  of  his  offending  is  that  he  has  declared  it 
necessary  to  combine  the  procedure  of  the  artist  with 
that  of  the  man  of  science  in  order  to  attain  a  full  and 
true  vision  of  reality.  Indeed,  so  far  from  justifying 
the  procedure  of  our  anarchic  Cubists  and  Futurists  in 
art  and  politics,  M.  Bergson's  philosophy  is  in  truth  the 
most  complete  antidote  to  their  pretensions.  For  it 
implies  that  the  sphere  of  intuition  or  inspiration  lies 
beyond  that  of  the  intellect;  and  accordingly  the  frontiers 
of  the  intellect  must  be  reached  and  over-passed  before 
the  realm  of  inspiration  can  be  entered. 

Now,  what  is  this  but  a  reassertion  of  what  we  have 
learned  from  Plato?  It  is  quite  true  that  when  the  new  vi- 
sion comes,  "it  is  not  by  any  known  or  accustomed  way." 
It  comes  after  but  not  merely  because  of  intellectual 
preparation.  It  is  post  hoc,  but  not  propter  hoc.  I  do 
not,  of  course,  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  relation  of 
the  mental  discipline  to  the  inspiration  is  causative: 
to  deny  that  would  be  insane.  My  point  is  that  the 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS      185 

inspiration  is  an  effect  not  of  the  mental  discipline  alone, 
but  of  the  combination  of  this  with  a  complex  of  other 
factors  which  (at  present)  is  unanalyzable. 

If  this  account  of  the  conditions  of  inspiration  be 
sound,  we  are  now  perhaps  in  a  position  to  attempt  a 
rough  definition  of  the  power  whose  antecedents  we  have 
traced.  Inspiration,  then,  let  us  say,  is  insight  trans- 
muted into  purpose  and  commanding  the  services  of  the 
intellect.  Insight  alone  is  not  inspiration;  nor  is  volition 
without  insight.  Intellectual  activity  alone  falls  far 
short  of  it.  But  when  the  will  has  been  purified  and 
quickened  by  insight,  and  when  the  intellect  has  been 
so  disciplined  that  it  is  able  to  serve  as  the  supple  and 
facile  instrument  of  the  purified  will,  then — in  that 
threefold  unity — the  celestial  visitant  appears.  Even 
then  it  seems  uncaused,  accidental;  because  we  are  never 
able  to  foresee  the  precise  assemblage  of  the  conditions 
of  its  manifestation. 

This  definition  of  inspiration  indicates  the  way  to 
attain  it.  The  precedent  conditions  are:  a  fervent  desire 
for  the  best,  a  humble  awareness  of  one's  shortcomings, 
and  intense  labour  to  qualify  oneself  for  it.  Such  is 
the  philosophy  of  Plato;  such,  too,  is  the  meaning  of 
the  great  picture  of  inspiration  which  we  owe  to  the 
Hebrew  Isaiah.  When  the  Spirit  takes  him  into  the 
presence  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts  and  his  seraphic  sentinels, 
he  cries  out, — 

Woe  is  me!  for  I  am  undone;  because  I  am  a  man  of  unclean 
lips,  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a  people  of  unclean  lips:  for 
mine  eyes  have  seen  the  King,  the  Lord  of  Hosts.  Then  flew 
one  of  the  seraphim  unto  me,  having  a  live  coal  in  his  hand, 
which  he  had  taken  with  the  tongs  from  off  the  altar:  and 


1 86  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

he  touched  my  mouth  with  it,  and  said,  Lo,  this  hath  touched 
thy  lips;  and  thine  iniquity  is  taken  away,  and  thy  sin  purged. 
And  I  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord,  saying,  Whom  shall  I 
send,  and  who  will  go  for  us?  Then  said  I,  Here  am  I;  send 


We  cannot  become  the  fit  champions  of  the  ideal,  the 
messengers  of  the  highest,  until  the  uncleanness  of  our 
lips  has  been  burnt  away  by  painful  contact  with  the 
divine  fire;  until  we  have  drilled  and  disciplined  ourselves 
out  of  our  pettinesses  and  self-centred  promptings,  and 
out  of  intellectual  arrogance  and  dogmatic  certitude. 
Only  when  littleness  and  self-sufficiency  have  been  thus 
purged  away,  only  when  after  intense  struggle  we  have 
attained  the  divine  vision,  can  we  respond  to  the  chal- 
lenge of  that  eternal  reason  which  presses  to  actualize 
itself  in  man,  with  the  words,  "Here  am  I;  send  me." 

The  inspired  man  makes  the  mass  of  us  uncomfortable, 
because  we  cannot  live  at  his  level  of  self-abnegation. 
The  great  void  in  our  lives  is  the  absence  of  inspiration. 
We  feel  the  need  of  the  miserable  luxuries  that  enslave 
us  because  we  cannot  breathe  the  upper  air,  and  the 
view  from  the  heights  is  hidden  from  us.  We  live  in  the 
passing  moment.  We  are  querulous  and  wilful  because 
our  will  has  not  been  caught  up  and  quickened  by  pur- 
poses that  eternalize  us,  dwarfing  into  insignificance 
all  outer  things.  He  who  has  been  thus  transfigured 
is  the  only  man  to  be  envied,  the  only  one  whom,  what- 
ever he  suffer,  we  never  need  pity. 

Even  for  the  most  highly  favoured,  the  moments  of 
vision  are  rare;  but  the  strength  they  impart  sustains 
the  seer  through  all  his  after  days.  As  Arnold  has  sung: 

1  Isaiah  vi,  5-8.    (R.  V.) 


INSPIRATION:  ITS  NATURE  AND  CONDITIONS      187 

We  cannot  kindle  when  we  will 
The  fire  that  in  the  heart  resides. 

The  spirit  bloweth  and  is  still; 
In  mystery  our  soul  abides. 

But  tasks  in  hours  of  insight  willed 

Can  be  through  hours  of  gloom  fulfilled. 

He  who  has  thus  toiled  upward  in  the  night,  he  who  "by 
labour  and  intense  study"  has  clarified  his  intellect  and 
purified  his  will,  is  the  only  man  who  can  truly  be  called 
master  of  his  fate.  Because  he  can  be  neither  bribed 
nor  terrified,  the  world  is  at  his  feet. 


CHAPTER  VII 

IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO 

IF  it  should  happen  that  among  my  readers  there  are 
some  hitherto  mute,  inglorious  Shakespeares,  I  would 
venture  to  suggest  to  them  that  one  of  the  plays  for  which 
the  world  is  still  waiting  is  that  magnificent  tragedy  in 
three  acts,  to  be  entitled,  The  Death  of  Socrates.  It 
was  by  a  very  unfortunate  oversight  that  Shakespeare 
(whom  the  high  gods  probably  sent  into  the  world  for 
the  special  purpose  of  writing  this  play)  omitted  to  do  it. 
Perhaps  it  was  because  neither  North  nor  Holland 
happened  to  translate  Plato;  perhaps  because  Shake- 
speare felt  that  the  theme  was  too  sublime,  even  for  him. 
Yet  it  may  be  that  the  intention  of  the  gods  has  been 
not  frustrated,  but  only  deferred.  It  may  be  that,  in  the 
fulness  of  time,  after  we  have  recovered  from  the  age  of 
Ibsen  and  Bernard  Shaw,  the  tragedy  of  The  Death  of 
Socrates  will  get  itself  written  and  acted. 

Very  little  actual  invention  will  be  needed  by  its 
author.  The  materials  and  the  characters  are  at  hand  in 
the  Platonic  trilogy.1  The  first  act  will  present  the 
trial  and  condemnation  of  Socrates,  with  his  superb 
contempt  of  Court,  his  refusal  to  say  or  do  anything 
which  might  imply  that  the  Court  owed  him  aught  save 
honour  and  respect,  or  that  an  acquittal  by  them,  or 
even  the  granting  of  maintenance  in  the  Prytaneum, 
would  be  an  unmerited  favour  to  him.  The  second  act 

1  The  Apology,  the  Crito  and  the  Phaedo. 
188 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  189 

will  take  place  in  the  prison,  at  an  early  hour  of  morning; 
the  curtain  rising  upon  the  scene  where  the  aged  Crito 
watches  by  the  bed  of  the  sleeping  Socrates,  astonished 
that  his  friend  can  rest  so  soundly,  seeing  that  on  the 
morrow  he  is  to  die.  The  sacred  ship  from  Delos  has  been 
sighted  off  Sunium,  and  with  her  arrival  the  life  of 
Socrates  must  end,  as  the  life  of  Meleager  ends  with  the 
consuming  of  the  brand  that  flamed  when  he  was  born. 
The  substance  of  this  second  act  will  be  the  attempt  of 
Crito  to  induce  Socrates  to  escape,  and  the  statement  by 
Socrates  of  his  reasons  for  refusing. 

The  third  act  will  set  upon  the  stage  the  tale  told 
by  Phaedo  to  Echecrates  of  Phlius.  The  day  is  that  on 
which  Socrates  is  to  drink  the  poison.  From  early  morn- 
ing his  friends  are  about  him,  and  they  spend  the  day 
in  discussing  with  him  the  question  of  the  soul's  im- 
mortality. In  the  course  of  the  talk  various  little  in- 
cidents of  which  the  dramatist  can  make  good  use  occur 
or  are  alluded  to :  as  when,  for  example,  Socrates  is  rep- 
resented as  stroking  the  curly  hair  of  his  beloved  dis- 
ciple Phaedo;  and  again  when  the  jailer  comes  weeping 
to  tell  his  illustrious  prisoner  that  the  hour  of  his  death 
has  struck,  and  Socrates,  serene  and  unmoved,  turns  to 
his  heart-broken  companions  with  the  remark,  "How 
charming  the  man  is ! "  Then,  with  the  rays  of  the  setting 
sun  falling  upon  him  like  the  pointing  hand  of  God,  the 
wisest  man  of  his  age  drinks  the  hemlock  and  sets  forth 
on  the  high  adventure  called  death. 

If  the  next  Shakespeare  should  agree  with  his  prede- 
cessor in  thinking  such  a  theme  too  sublime  for  dra- 
matic presentation,  one's  hope  of  seeing  this  great  play 
written  will  be  disappointed  or  indefinitely  deferred. 
But  meantime  one  may  remind  the  Michael  Angelos  of 


190  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

twentieth-century  America  that  no  theme  has  ever  been 
considered  too  sacred  for  the  painter  to  depict.  An 
attempt  has  indeed  been  made  to  put  on  canvas  the 
scene  of  the  death  of  Socrates,  but  unfortunately  the 
artist  shared  the  prevalent  illusion  that  Greek  men  were 
like  stone  statues,  only  less  alive.  When  the  predestined 
painter  of  this  scene  arrives,  he  will  be  one  who  recognizes 
that  Athenian  gentlemen  of  the  fourth  century  B.  C. 
were  exactly  like  the  most  cultivated  sons  of  the  twen- 
tieth century  of  the  Christian  era.  He  will  therefore 
seek  his  models  not  in  the  British  Museum  or  the  Louvre, 
or  in  the  shop  of  an  antique  dealer,  but  in — let  us  say — 
the  literary  clubs  of  Boston  or  London,  or  in  the  Senate 
at  Washington. 

But  to  our  theme: 

It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind,  when  reading  the  words  of 
Plato  concerning  immortality,  that  he  was  not  confused 
by  the  mental  muddle  created  in  modern  times  by  the 
attempt  to  furnish  a  substitute  for  it.  He  knew,  what 
the  unsophisticated  consciousness  has  always  known, 
that  the  immortality  which  men  desire  is  personal  or 
nothing.  It  means  the  continuance  (with  whatever 
development)  of  the  self-conscious  individual  soul.  If 
it  is  not  this,  it  is  not  immortality.  The  attempt  of 
Positivism  to  deny  this,  and  at  the  same  time  to  provide 
the  same  consolation,  by  talking  about  the  incorporation 
of  the  (non-existent)  soul  into  the  Great  Being  Humanity, 
if  taken  seriously  (and  there  actually  are  some  people 
who  take  it  seriously),  is  a  strange  piece  of  intellectual 
jugglery.  It  is  like  the  construction  sometimes  placed 
upon  the  Apostles'  Creed,  according  to  which  "conceived 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary"  means, 
"conceived  of  the  carpenter  Joseph,  bora  of  the  married 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  191 

woman  Mary";  and  "I  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the 
body"  means,  "I  deny  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  but 
I  rather  fancy  that  the  soul  may  be  immortal." 

I  would  not  even  seem  to  disparage  that  noble  aspira- 
tion which  is  expressed  by  George  Eliot  in  The  Choir 
Invisible.  "To  make  undying  music  in  the  world," 
to  "be  to  other  souls  the  cup  of  strength  in  some  great 
agony,"  to  leave  to  after-times  "the  sweet  presence  of  a 
good  diffused,  and  in  diffusion  ever  more  intense," — this 
is  the  sole  aim  worthy  of  the  life  of  man.  But  to  call  it 
immortality  is  to  use  language  with  reckless  ambiguity. 
An  influence  is  not  a  person;  it  is  not  a  consciousness;  and 
a  personal  consciousness  is  the  only  possible  subject  of 
the  kind  of  life  to  which  this  desire  relates.  To  anybody 
who  longs  for  personal  continuance,  the  surrogate  ar- 
rangement offered  by  Positivism  is  a  positive  insult. 
If  you  do  not  believe  in  conscious  life  after  death,  and 
some  bereaved  friend  comes  to  you  for  consolation,  be 
brave  enough  to  tell  what  you  really  think.  Do  not  say, 
"I  can  offer  you  an  excellent  substitute,"  because  you 
cannot.  Do  not  imitate  those  vegetarian  restaurants 
in  London,  where  they  give  you  a  hash-up  of  beans  and 
fried  potatoes,  and  call  it  steak.  Do  not  say  in  effect, 
"Of  course  you  want  to  be  assured  that  your  friend  is 
alive,  and  that  you  and  he  will  meet  again,  whereas  he  is 
really  dead  and  done  for;  but  you  can  easily  lull  yourself 
into  believing  that  it  is  very  much  the  same  as  if  he  were 
still  living."  In  other  words,  do  not  pretend  that  a 
figure  of  speech  is  a  statement  of  fact.  We  can  permit 
the  poet  to  speak  of  "those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 
in  lives  made  better  by  their  presence,"  only  upon  the 
strict  understanding  that  this  is  not  to  be  offered  as  a 
consolation  to  anybody  who  is  seeking  the  kind  of  com- 


192  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

fort  of  which  this  doctrine  is  a  denial.  Such  persons 
need  first  to  be  weaned  from  their  vain  yearning, — vain, 
because  the  assurance  they  seek  is  unattainable, — and  led 
up  to  that  nobler  but  quite  different  faith  to  which  George 
Eliot's  spirit  can  appeal. 

Of  Plato's  attempt  to  find  a  rational  basis  for  his  belief 
in  personal  survival,  Matthew  Arnold  speaks  almost  with 
asperity:  "By  what  futilities  the  demonstration  of  our 
immortality  may  be  attempted  is  to  be  seen  in  Plato's 
Phaedo."  Mr.  Arnold  then  proceeds  to  indulge  in  a 
futility  of  his  own: — 

Man's  natural  desire  for  continuance,  however  little  it  may 
be  worth  as  a  scientific  proof  of  our  immortality,  is  at  least  a 
proof  a  thousand  times  stronger  than  any  such  demonstra- 
tion. The  want  of  solidity  in  such  argument  is  so  palpable 
that  one  scarcely  cares  to  turn  a  steady  regard  upon  it  at 
all.1 

It  may  be  so.  We  may  never  be  able  to  find,  on  either 
side  of  the  question,  arguments  that  will  sustain  one 
moment's  steady  regard;  and  yet  the  everlasting  riddle 
will  always  continue  to  be  propounded.  Although  we 
have  no  data  which  could  convert  our  feeling  of  what  is 
probable  into  a  knowledge  of  what  is  actual,  we  shall 
continue  to  dispute  about  this  subject,  because  we  must; 
and  after  we  have  recognized  the  "futilities"  of  Plato 
and  of  Arnold  for  what  they  are,  we  shall  proceed  to 
invent  fresh  ones  of  our  own.  Those  whose  faith  in 
immortality  is  shocked  or  shaken  by  Arnold's  criticism 
may  at  least  find  comfort  by  remembering  that  nothing 
that  Plato  or  anybody  else,  down  to  the  most  ranting 

1  Literature  and  Dogma,  chap.  xii. 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  193 

revivalist  or  the  most  feeble-minded  seance-haunter,  ever 
offered  as  a  proof  of  immortality,  can  equal  in  futility  the 
arguments  advanced  in  recent  times  as  proof  that  man 
is  not  immortal.  When  scientific  "philosophers"  or 
their  popularizers  tell  us  that  the  human  soul  is  "a  func- 
tion of  the  nervous  system,"  or  that  "the  brain  secretes 
thought  as  the  liver  secretes  bile,"  we  feel  that  the  wildest 
non-sequitur  in  the  Phaedo  is  by  comparison  logical  and 
rational  With  people  who  can  believe  that  the  subject 
is  derived  from  the  object;  that  the  spirit  is  created  by 
its  instruments;  that  the  knower  is  a  product  of  a  few  of 
the  items  which  he  knows; — with  such  people  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  hold  serious  argument.  One  cannot  but  an- 
ticipate that  they  will  shortly  undertake,  with  a  specially 
powerful  microscope,  to  show  us  a  little  bit  of  human 
kindness,  or  a  fragment  detached  from  a  chain  of  argu- 
ment. Why  not,  if  thought  is  a  secretion  of  the  brain? 

If  we  are  to  attempt  a  serious  discussion,  worthy  of  the 
high  mood  of  the  Phaedo,  we  must  begin  by  recogniz- 
ing the  absolute  mystery  in  the  presence  of  which  we 
stand,  and  which  confronts  us  when  we  gaze  within  our- 
selves. We  cannot  to-day  say  more  than  was  said  nearly 
three  hundred  years  ago  by  Sir  Thomas  Browne:  "We 
are  men,  and  we  know  not  how."  He  is  the  victim  of  an 
illusion  who  thinks  that  the  description  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  body  which  modern  science  gives  us,  is  an 
explanation  either  of  the  body  or  of  the  mind.  There 
are,  strictly  speaking,  no  explanations  in  science;  there 
are  only  descriptions  and  correlations  of  the  given.  If  I 
stand  in  spell-bound  astonishment  before  the  fact  that 
I  am  the  son  of  my  father  and  the  father  of  my  son,  my 
astonishment  is  not  to  be  dispelled  by  a  mere  restate- 
ment of  the  fact  of  the  relationship,  however  full  of  detail 


194  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

it  may  be.  Now,  science  is  little  more  than  such  a  de- 
tailed restatement  of  facts,  many  of  which  are  superfi- 
cially familiar  to  common  sense.  Science  can  tell  us 
much  of  the  make  of  the  world,  but  nothing  of  its  making. 
To  questions  that  begin  with  the  word  "How?"  it  can 
reply  at  great  length;  but  to  questions  that  ask  "Why?" 
it  has  no  answers. 

Men  had  marvelled,  for  example,  at  the  mystery  of 
creation.  Then  came  science,  substituting  the  word 
evolution  for  the  word  creation.  What  it  meant  thereby 
(as  we  saw  in  Chapter  III)  was  that  the  force  or  forces  by 
which  observed  changes  in  the  world  have  come  about, 
are  inherent  in  the  world,  and  not  acting  upon  it  from 
"outside."  This,  however,  is  only  a  convenient  hypothe- 
sis, unproved  and  unprovable,  but  serviceable  as  a  simpli- 
fication of  practical  problems.  To  those  who  have 
erected  it  into  a  complete  system  of  mythology,  the  vir- 
tual meaning  of  which  is  that  Evolution  is  the  name  of 
God,  there  is  no  mystery;  but  for  the  rest  of  us,  who  can- 
not so  easily  succeed  in  deluding  ourselves  with  names, 
there  is  nothing  for  it  but  the  frank  recognition  that  all 
that  was  mysterious  to  Plato  remains  equally  mysterious 
to  us.  The  essence  of  the  mystery  is  not  any  special 
collocation  of  particular  facts,  but  the  very  possibility  of 
there  being  such  a  thing  as  knowledge, — the  possibility 
of  the  co-existence  and  connection  of  thought  and  thing, 
of  the  multiplicity  of  minds  in  relation  with  each  other 
through  a  world  which  serves  as  their  instrument  of 
communication. 

But  Man  is  magnificent  as  well  as  mysterious.  We 
have  been  brow-beaten  by  the  conclusions  of  physical 
science  into  thinking  of  him  as  merely  one  among  the 
animals,  subject  to  their  vicissitudes  and  to  the  blind 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  195 

play  of  uncontrollable  forces.  The  old  estimates  of  his 
dignity  and  greatness  sound  foolish  and  presumptuous 
to  our  ears.  We  are  too  modest  to  realize  that  our 
very  ability  to  raise  the  question  of  our  kinship  with  the 
lower  animals  is  itself  a  proof  of  our  essential  differ- 
ence from  them.  This  view,  of  course,  is  consistent 
with  the  fullest  recognition  of  the  descent  of  the  body 
from  animal  ancestors.  I  am  not  in  the  least  disputing 
the  Darwinian  argument  on  that  side.  But  if  we  could 
shake  ourselves  free  from  the  gross  illusions  of  the  ma- 
terialistic standpoint,  we  should  find  nothing  strange  or 
unwarrantable  in  that  estimate  which  places  man  not 
among  the  animals  but  among  the  gods.  The  truth  is 
under-stated  rather  than  exceeded  in  those  beautiful 
lines  of  Mr.  Watson's: — 

We  are  children  of  splendour  and  flame, 

Of  shuddering  also,  and  tears; 
Magnificent  out  of  the  dust  we  came, 

And  abject  from  the  spheres.1 

The  under-statement  here  lies  in  the  possible  implica- 
tion that  the  duality  of  man's  nature  intersects  the  line 
of  cleavage  between  body  and  spirit,  and  that  the  spirit, 
or  some  part  of  it,  came,  like  the  body,  out  of  the  dust. 
To  this  extent  Mr.  Watson  seems  to  side  with  the  mate- 
rialistic biologists,  whose  whole  procedure  is  vitiated 
through  their  mistaking  of  conditions  for  causes— an 
error  which  was  so  completely  exposed  by  Plato  in  the 
Phaedo  2  that  it  ought  never  to  be  made  again  by  any 
thinker  claiming  to  be  scientific. 

1  William  Watson's  Ode  in  May. 

2  "I  found  my  philosopher  altogether  forsaking  mind  or  any  other 
principle  of  order,  but  having  recourse  to  air,  and  ether,  and  water,  and 
other  eccentricities.    I  might  compare  him  to  a  person  who  began  by 


196  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

It  is  refreshing  and  encouraging  to  turn  from  those 
biological  inquiries  which  humiliate  man  by  seeking  his 
antecedents  among  the  apes  and  in  the  dust,  to  that 
higher  and  truer  account  of  him  penned  by  Sir  Thomas 
Browne.  He  speaks  rhetorically  of  himself,  but  his 
words  are  true  of  all  men: 

Now  for  my  life,  it  is  a  miracle  of  thirty  years,  which  to 
relate  were  not  a  history,  but  a  piece  of  poetry,  and  would 
sound  to  common  ears  like  a  fable.  For  the  world,  I  count 
it  not  an  inn,  but  an  hospital;  and  a  place  not  to  live,  but  to 
die  in.  The  world  that  I  regard  is  myself;  it  is  the  microcosm 
of  my  own  frame  that  I  cast  mine  eye  on:  for  the  other,  I 

maintaining  generally  that  mind  is  the  cause  of  the  actions  of  Socrates, 
but  who,  when  he  endeavoured  to  explain  the  causes  of  my  several 
actions  in  detail,  went  on  to  show  that  I  sit  here  because  my  body  is 
made  up  of  bones  and  muscles;  and  the  bones,  as  he  would  say,  are  hard 
and  have  ligaments  which  divide  them,  and  the  muscles  are  elastic,  and 
they  cover  the  bones,  which  have  also  a  covering  or  environment  of 
flesh  and  skin  which  contains  them;  and  as  the  bones  are  lifted  at  their 
joints  by  the  contraction  or  relaxation  of  the  muscles,  I  am  able  to  bend 
my  limbs,  and  this  is  why  I  am  sitting  here  in  a  curved  posture:  that  is 
what  he  would  say,  and  he  would  have  a  similar  explanation  of  my  talking 
to  you,  which  he  would  attribute  to  sound,  and  air,  and  hearing,  and  he 
would  assign  ten  thousand  other  causes  of  the  same  sort,  forgetting  to 
mention  the  true  cause,  which  is,  that  the  Athenians  have  thought  fit 
to  condemn  me,  and  accordingly  I  have  thought  it  better  and  more  right 
to  remain  here  and  undergo  my  sentence;  for  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
these  muscles  and  bones  of  mine  would  have  gone  off  to  Megara  or 
Boeotia, — by  the  Dog  of  Egypt!  they  would,  if  they  had  been  guided 
only  by  their  own  idea  of  what  was  best,  and  if  I  had  not  chosen  as  the 
better  and  nobler  part,  instead  of  playing  truant  and  running  away,  to 
undergo  any  punishment  which  the  State  inflicts.  There  is  surely  a 
strange  confusion  of  causes  and  conditions  in  all  this.  It  may  be  said, 
indeed,  that  without  bones  and  muscles  and  the  other  parts  of  the  body 
I  cannot  execute  my  purposes.  But  to  say  that  I  do  as  I  do  because  of 
them,  and  that  this  is  the  way  in  which  mind  acts,  and  not  from  the 
choice  of  the  best,  is  a  very  careless  and  idle  mode  of  speaking." — 
§§98-99. 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  197 

use  it  but  like  my  globe,  and  turn  it  round  sometimes  for 
my  recreation.  Men  that  look  upon  my  outside,  perusing 
only  my  condition  and  fortunes,  do  err  in  my  altitude;  for  I 
am  above  Atlas's  shoulders.  The  earth  is  a  point  not  only 
in  respect  of  the  heavens  above  us,  but  of  that  heavenly  and 
celestial  part  within  us.  That  mass  of  flesh  that  circum- 
scribes me  limits  not  my  mind.  That  surface  that  tells  the 
heavens  it  hath  an  end  cannot  persuade  me  I  have  any.  I 
take  my  circle  to  be  above  three  hundred  and  sixty.  Though 
the  number  of  the  arc  do  measure  my  body,  it  comprehendeth 
not  my  mind.  Whilst  I  study  to  find  how  I  am  a  microcosm, 
or  little  world,  I  find  myself  something  more  than  the  great. 
There  is  surely  a  piece  of  divinity  in  us;  something  that  was 
before  the  elements,  and  owes  no  homage  unto  the  sun.  .  .  . 
He  that  understands  not  thus  much  hath  not  his  intro- 
duction or  first  lesson,  and  is  yet  to  begin  the  alphabet  of 


The  problem  of  immortality,  then,  is  not  whether  man's 
body  contains  some  rarefied  physical  essence  which  at 
death  can  rise  from  it  like  an  exhalation  and  continue 
to  subsist  without  it.  We  grant  to  the  biologist  that 
no  part  of  the  body  survives;  the  resolution  of  the 
physical  frame  at  death  into  its  component  solids,  fluids 
and  gases  is  complete.  He  has  very  kindly  told  us,  in 
learned  language,  what  we  knew  before.  Upon  the  prob- 
lem with  which  we  are  concerned,  his  researches  are 
inherently  incapable  of  throwing  any  light  whatever. 
Our  quest  is  as  to  the  fate  of  the  essential  man,  who  is 
non-physical  and  non-spatial;  and  our  first  question  is 
whether  he  is  also  extra-temporal. 

There  are,  indeed,  two  ideas  fused  together  in  the  or- 
dinary conception  of  immortality.  That  word  is  com- 

1  Sir  T.  Browne,  Religio  Medici,  Pt.  ii,  §  n. 


1 98  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

monly  treated  as  synonymous  with  eternity.  We  speak 
indifferently  of  immortal  life  and  of  eternal  life,  and  we 
do  not  usually  trouble  ourselves  to  inquire  whether  this 
procedure  is  legitimate.  The  two  ideas  should,  however, 
be  kept  distinct.  The  one  is  the  vague  popular  notion 
of  indefinite  continuance;  the  other  has  no  relation  to 
continuance.  It  is  a  qualitative,  not  a  quantitative 
conception.  The  immortal  life  of  ordinary  religious 
aspiration  is  simply  a  reproduction  of  the  same  type  of 
existence  that  the  phenomenal  man  passes  through 
before  death.  It  is  an  indefinite  prolongation  of  that 
life  through  endless  time.  It  sets  aside  the  question 
whether  man  is  truly  in  time,  or  whether  time  is,  so  to 
speak,  in  man. 

Now  one  may,  as  a  matter  of  faith  or  by  logical  neces- 
sity, but  without  any  dogmatism,  believe  in  an  eternal 
spiritual  order,  and  yet  remain  unconvinced  as  to  im- 
mortality, or  as  to  the  possibility  of  a  life  after  death 
which  should  be  something  less  than  immortal.  I  have 
elsewhere  pointed  out  that  even  a  scientific  proof  (if 
such  a  thing  were  possible)  that  man  continues  to  live 
after  death  would  in  no  wise  prove  that  he  will  live  for 
ever.1  To  believe  in  an  eternal  order  is  to  believe  that 
the  spirit  of  man  is  now  outside  of  time  and  above  suc- 
cession. One  may  hold,  with  Kant,  that  time  is  a  form 
of  thought — one  of  those  functions  of  the  understanding 
by  which,  as  he  said,  it  "makes  nature."  In  that  case, 
man  does  not  begin  and  end  in  time,  but  time  begins 
and  ends  in  him.  Or  one  may  believe,  with  Bergson, 
that  time  should  be  expressed  in  terms  of  duration, 
which  is  not  that  of  the  body,  but  of  that  noumenal 

1  Criticisms  of  Life,  chap,  iv,  p.  137.  This  argument  was  of  course 
anticipated  by  Plato.  See  below,  p.  211. 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  199 

force  by  which  all  living  bodies  are  organized,  and  the 
fate  of  which  is  not  involved  in  their  vicissitudes.  Ac- 
cording to  Bergson's  view,  there  is  nothing  with  which 
the  duration  of  man's  life  can  be  compared,  except  the 
universe  itself  in  its  totality.  We  think  we  measure 
ourselves  by  units  of  a  homogeneous  medium  called 
time.  But  in  order  to  do  this,  we  have  to  delude  our- 
selves into  thinking  that  we  have  performed  the  impos- 
sible conjuring- trick  of  objectifying  the  subject.  It  is 
only  what  William  James  calls  the  empirical  ego,  as 
distinguished  from  the  pure  ego,  which  can  thus  be 
measured:  the  me,  not  the  /.  The  pure  self  overspans 
any  succession  which  it  measures,  embracing  both  its 
ends;  otherwise  the  measurement  would  be  impossible. 
Now,  in  doing  this  we  necessarily  transform  the  suc- 
cession into  a  simultaneity.  A  period  of  time,  if  I  am 
thus  to  deal  with  it,  must  become  for  my  consciousness 
a  unitary  object.  The  fifteen  years  of  the  twentieth 
century  which  have  thus  far  elapsed  are  gathered  up 
in  our  memory  into  such  a  unity.  The  year  1901  and  the 
year  1915  co-exist  in  the  mind. 

A  simple  way  of  bringing  home  the  paradox  involved 
in  the  idea  of  time  is  to  divide  time,  as  common  sense 
always  does,  into  past,  present  and  future.  We  spring 
from  the  past;  we  live  in  the  present;  and  we  are  continu- 
ally reaching  forward  into  the  future.  But  what  and 
where  is  the  past?  It  does  not  exist.  And  the  future? 
It  is  to  be,  we  say;  but  this  is  an  indirect  way  of  admitting 
that  it  also  does  not  exist.  Baffled,  we  seek  to  grasp  at 
the  present;  but  it  proves  as  elusive  as  past  and  future. 
The  word,  as  it  leaves  my  lips,  is  no  longer  present;  it 
has  slipped  into  the  non-existent  past.  What  then  is 
the  reality  of  this  time,  which  is  everywhere  and  nowhere, 


200  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

which  is  always  and  never;  of  which  two- thirds  do  not 
exist  and  the  other  third  cannot  be  grasped? 

In  an  earlier  chapter  I  attempted  a  distinction  be- 
tween existence  and  reality  which  I  must  here  recall 
to  the  reader's  memory.  Existence,  I  suggested,  should 
be  regarded  as  the  purely  intellectual  category ;  reality  as 
the  volitional.  That  which  does  not  exist  may  yet  be 
real.  If  so,  its  reality  consists  in  the  fact  that  it  satisfies 
some  inherent  need  of  the  spirit.  All  ideals  are  of  this 
nature.  Everybody  can  see,  for  example,  that  it  would 
be  absurd  to  say  that  justice  exists;  but  nobody  hesi- 
tates for  a  moment  to  declare  that  justice  is  intensely 
real.  Or,  if  any  pessimist  should  choose  to  deny  this, 
I  would  take  the  liberty  of  reminding  him  that  in  the 
act  of  doing  so  he  has  affirmed  the  reality  of  injustice, 
which  equally  cannot  be  thought  of  as  existing. 

Time,  then,  may  without  absurdity  be  called  non- 
existent but  real :  so  too  may  space  and  causality, — both 
of  which  ideas,  when  analyzed,  are  found  to  be  as 
elusive  as  time.  We  differentiate  the  unbroken  con- 
tinuum of  the  senses  into  an  ordered  universe  by  means 
of  the  intuition  of  space;  and  by  means  of  that  mental 
creation  or  rational  function  called  time  we  succeed  in 
distributing  the  world  of  events  into  an  intelligible  se- 
quence. Past,  present  and  future  have  no  more  existence 
apart  from  us  than  have  the  lines  of  latitude  and  longi- 
tude, which  we  draw  on  our  maps,  in  the  world  which 
those  maps  depict.  Like  them,  time  is  a  creation  of  the 
mind  to  meet  its  own  needs. 

Now  the  consequence  of  admitting  this  is  the  recogni- 
tion that  the  spirit  of  man,  being  outside  of  time,  is 
outside  of  succession.  It  does  not  move  forward  to  grasp 
the  future;  the  stream  of  events  flows  towards  it  and  is 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  2OI 

absorbed  in  it.  But  the  common  idea  of  immortality, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  simply  that  of  indefinite  succession. 
In  these  terms  we  continue  to  pose  the  problem,  because 
the  transcendent  order  of  reality,  to  which  the  essential 
man  belongs,  is  and  must  remain  incomprehensible  to  us. 
It  is  not,  however,  inapprehensible.  We  cannot  present 
it  to  ourselves  in  conceptual  form,  because  (not  being 
able  to  jump  out  of  our  skins)  we  cannot  objectify  the 
subject,  the  pure  ego.  But  it  is  of  this  timeless  reality 
that  we  should  be  thinking  when  we  use  the  words 
eternity  and  eternal. 

Our  intellectual  difficulty  in  the  matter  is  to  some 
extent  helped  by  poetic  pictures,  though  even  these 
are  apt  to  be  misleading.  Shelley,  in  an  inspired  mo- 
ment, compared  life  to  "a  dome  of  many-coloured  glass" 
which ' '  stains  the  white  radiance  of  eternity. ' '  A  Hebrew 
psalmist  said  of  God,  "A  thousand  years  in  thy  sight  are 
but  as  yesterday  when  it  is  past,  and  as  a  watch  in  the 
night."  x  In  the  Fourth  Gospel  there  is  placed  upon  the 
lips  of  Christ  the  bold  paradox,  "Before  Abraham  was,  I 
am."  2  Now,  in  the  strict  sense,  the  words  of  the  psalm- 
ist in  reference  to  God  are  true  of  man.  A  thousand 
years  in  everybody's  sight  are  but  as  yesterday  when  it 
is  past.  The  comparison  is  not  in  respect  of  the  duration 
of  yesterday,  but  in  respect  of  the  simultaneity  into 
which  the  thousand  years,  like  yesterday,  are  fused,  in 
order  that  they  may  become  present  as  a  unitary  object 
to  consciousness.  So  with  the  words  of  the  Johannine 
Christ:  they  too  are  true  of  everybody.  Man  is  before 
Abraham  was,  because  in  his  consciousness  is  embraced 
the  time-span  from  before  the  day  of  Abraham  to  the 
present  moment.  Time  has  no  other  assignable  reality 

1  Ps.  xc,  4.  2  John  viii,  58. 


202  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

than  as  a  constituent  and  instrument  of  consciousness. 
It  is  the  duality  of  our  nature — the  fact  that  as  objects 
we  form  part  of  the  series  which  as  subjects  we  create — 
that  causes  our  confusion,  breaking  up  the  "white  radi- 
ance" into  the  many  colours  of  the  dome. 

We  may  think  of  eternity  under  the  image  of  a  ver- 
tical line,  cutting  across  the  horizontal  line  called  time. 
At  the  point  of  intersection  stands  man,  a  member  of 
both  series;  the  only  point  at  which  there  is  in  time  the 
gleam  of  eternity. 

This  notion  of  man  as  non-successive  (whether  in  this 
life  or  after  death)  is,  as  I  have  admitted,  inconceivable. 
But  we  know  why  it  is  so;  and  the  inconceivable  (as 
science  has  frequently  demonstrated)  is  not  the  impos- 
sible. The  only  question  is  whether  the  notion  is  forced 
upon  us  by  the  logical  analysis  of  our  own  nature  and  of 
the  conditions  of  knowledge.  If  it  is  (as  I  believe  to  be 
the  case),  we  cannot  refuse  to  entertain  it.  In  whatever 
direction  thought  proceeds,  it  always  conducts  us  to  the 
inconceivable.  I  would  claim  for  the  view  here  suggested 
that  it  is  logically  necessitated,  is  self-consistent  and  con- 
sistent with  the  data  of  experience;  whereas  the  opinion 
which  reduces  the  soul  of  man  to  phenomenal  rank, 
regarding  it  as  a  product  of  an  independent  time-process, 
involves  a  series  of  gratuitous  and  unprofitable  incon- 
ceivabilities. 

The  futilities  complained  of  by  Arnold  in  the  Phaedo 
are  due  not  merely  to  the  abstruse  nature  of  the  subject 
it  discusses,  but  to  the  imperfection  of  Plato's  dialectic, 
which  belongs,  as  Professor  Jowett  reminds  us,  to  the 
age  before  logic  and  psychology.  Already,  indeed,  we 
have  encountered  the  further  difficulty,  remarked  by 
Simmias  towards  the  close  of  the  argument,  which  "arises 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO 


203 


necessarily  out  of  the  greatness  of  the  subject  and  the 
feebleness  of  man."  The  effort  of  Socrates  to  prove  the 
pre-existence  of  the  soul  by  means  of  the  doctrine  of 
ideas  imparted  before  birth,1  is  one  of  the  futilities.  It  is 
easy  for  us  now  to  say,  in  Kantian  language,  that  not 
explicit  knowledge,  but  only  its  presuppositions,  are 
evolved  by  reason  a  priori,  and  to  distinguish  between 
the  a  priori  and  the  innate.  We  cannot  be  satisfied  by 
saying,  with  Cebes,  that  "if  you  put  a  question  to  a 
person  in  a  right  way,  he  will  give  a  true  answer  of  him- 
self; but  how  could  he  do  this  unless  there  were  knowledge 
and  right  reason  already  in  him?  "  For  we  should  be  met 
with  the  retort  that  "putting  a  question  in  a  right 
way"  means  putting  it  in  terms  that  contain  the  answer, 
and  that  to  identify  knowledge  with  "right  reason" 
is  to  beg  the  whole  question.  We  regard  the  knowledge 
developed  by  such  interrogations  not  as  reminiscent, 
but  as  a  new  creation,  produced  on  the  spot  by  the 
thinker  through  the  normal  operation  of  his  rational 
powers.  If  knowledge  could  begin  in  the  soul  before 
birth,  why  should  it  not  begin  in  this  life?  And  if  it  can 
begin  in  this  life,  what  need  have  we  of  the  hypothesis 
of  pre-existence  to  account  for  its  origin? 

Nor  can  we  do  otherwise  than  accept  Arnold's  epithet 
as  a  true  description  of  the  argument  by  which  Socrates 
seeks  to  prove  that  opposites  are  generated  out  of  each 
other,  and  therefore  that  life  is  born  of  death.2  That 
argument  confounds  succession  with  generation,  and  is 
thus  an  instance  of  the  fallacy  of  post  hoc  ergo  propter  hoc. 
His  later  attempt  to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  quali- 
ties out  of  relation,  and  to  show  that  greatness  and  small- 
ness,  oddness  and  evenness,  are  the  causes  of  particular 

1  Phaedo,  §  73.  *  Ibid.,  §§  70-72. 


204  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

things  being  great  and  small,  odd  and  even,  is,  in  similar 
fashion,  a  palpable  hypostatization  of  mere  words.  In 
all  this  we  see  the  great  workman  struggling  with  in- 
efficient tools. 

We  cannot  say,  indeed,  that  the  possibility  of  pre-natal 
existence  falls  with  the  collapse  of  Plato's  argument. 
That  doctrine  is  an  hypothesis  of  which  we  have  no  need, 
because  we  can,  as  we  think,  explain  the  facts  of  our 
present  knowledge  without  invoking  it.  It  remains  con- 
ceivable that  birth  may  be  but  an  interruption  of  our 
life,  by  which  continuity  is  broken  and  consciousness 
becomes  tangential  to  its  former  course.  While  recog- 
nizing this,  however,  we  agree  with  Arnold  that  an 
argument  which  assumes  it  is  a  futility.  It  is  an  attempt 
to  explain  the  unknown  by  the  still-more-unknown. 

But  the  whole  point  of  the  Phaedo  is  missed  if  we 
do  not  see  that  its  purpose,  from  beginning  to  end,  is 
ethical  rather  than  metaphysical.  What  Plato  is  inter- 
ested in  is  that  quality  of  the  soul  by  which  it  can  realize 
its  eternity.  The  notion  of  the  prolongation  of  individual 
consciousness  after  death  is  for  him  confessedly  a  myth: 
that  is,  a  guess.  The  epistemological  and  other  consid- 
erations introduced  by  Socrates  are  altogether  subordi- 
nate to  the  ethical  purpose  of  the  conversation.  The  key- 
note is  struck  at  the  beginning,  in  the  answer  of  Socrates 
to  the  question  why  the  philosopher  desires  death.  It 
is  because  death  liberates  him  from  a  thraldom  from 
which,  throughout  his  life,  he  has  been  trying  to  escape.1 

1  "If  we  would  have  pure  knowledge  of  anything,  we  must  be  quit  of 
the  body,  and  the  soul  in  herself  must  behold  all  things  in  themselves: 
then  I  suppose  that  we  shall  attain  that  which  we  desire,  and  of  which 
we  say  that  we  are  lovers,  and  that  is  wisdom;  not  while  we  live,  but  after 
death,  as  the  argument  shows;  for  if  while  in  company  with  the  body 
the  soul  cannot  have  pure  knowledge,  one  of  two  things  seems  to  follow — 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO 


205 


The  Socrates  who  here  argues  for  the  immortality  of 
the  soul  is  the  same  man  who,  before  his  judges,  had 
taken  the  agnostic  attitude.  To  them  he  had  argued 
that  whether  death  is  a  dreamless  sleep  or  the  entrance 
to  a  new  life,  it  is  in  either  case  a  good.  Because  the 
man  whose  soul  is  clothed  with  the  armour  of  virtue  is 
invulnerable  to  the  shafts  of  chance,  no  evil  can  befall 
him,  either  in  life  or  after  death.  His  reconciliation  to 
his  lot  is  therefore  not  conditional  upon  a  balancing  of 
external  goods  against  external  ills.  He  has  attained  to 
that  qualitative  perfection  which  is  the  highest  conceiv- 
able fruition  even  of  an  everlasting  life.  The  production 
of  a  soul  like  his  is  the  only  end  which  could  make  an 
immortal  life  desirable.  Since  its  perfection  is  intensive, 
not  extensive,  it  is  independent  of  duration.  Though 
it  were  manifested  but  for  a  moment,  the  spirit  of  Soc- 
rates is  as  great  as  it  could  be  if  it  continued  to  ex- 
ist for  ever;  for,  as  Aristotle  says,  "it  will  not  do  to 
say  that  the  eternity  of  the  essential  good  makes  it 
to  be  more  good;  for  what  has  lasted  white  ever  so 
long  is  no  whiter  than  what  lasts  but  for  a  day."  1 
Plato's  interest,  like  that  of  all  truly  religious  moralists, 
is  in  the  whiteness,  not  in  its  duration.  The  Phaedo 
is  there  not  to  prove  that  men  are  immortal,  but  to  make 

either  knowledge  is  not  to  be  attained  at  all,  or,  if  at  all,  after  death.  For 
then,  and  not  till  then,  the  soul  will  be  in  herself  alone,  and  without  the 
body.  In  this  present  life,  I  reckon  that  we  make  the  nearest  approach 
to  knowledge  when  we  have  the  least  possible  concern  or  interest  in  the 
body,  and  are  not  saturated  with  the  bodily  nature,  but  remain  pure 
until  the  hour  when  God  himself  is  pleased  to  release  us.  And  then  the 
foolishness  of  the  body  will  be  cleared  away,  and  we  shall  be  pure  and 
hold  converse  with  other  pure  souls,  and  know  of  ourselves  the  clear 
light  everywhere;  and  this  is  surely  the  light  of  truth.  For  no  impure 
thing  is  allowed  to  approach  the  pure." — Phaedo,  §§  66-67. 
1  Ethics,  Book  i,  chap.  3. 


206  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

them  realize  that  they  are  eternal.  They  can  in  this 
life  develop  in  themselves  essential  and  substantive 
wisdom  and  goodness.  These  are,  indeed,  indestructible, 
and  may  persist  in  the  individualized  consciousness  in 
which  they  are  developed;  but  in  any  case  they  are  the 
supreme  values,  for  the  sake  of  which  alone  an  endless 
existence  could  be  worth  while. 

The  primary  purpose,  then,  of  Socrates  is  to  teach  his 
followers  to  emancipate  themselves  from  bondage  to 
their  bodily  affections  and  desires.  This  he  does  by  ex- 
hibiting, with  unparalleled  keenness  of  moral  discrimina- 
tion, the  difference  between  the  prudential  self-abnega- 
tion of  the  philistine  and  the  truly  ethical  self-discipline 
of  the  enlightened  lover  of  virtue.1  The  philistine,  as 
he  points  out,  forgoes  one  bodily  pleasure  in  order  that 
he  may  enjoy  another.  He  is,  in  the  seemingly  paradox- 
ical words  of  Socrates,  "temperate  because  he  is  intem- 
perate." Thus  the  man  who  abandons  certain  luxuries  of 
drink  or  diet,  not  for  the  sake  of  the  spiritual  liberation 
which  results,  but  in  order  that  he  may  live  the  longer 
to  gratify  hunger  and  thirst,  has  made  no  progress  in 
virtue  at  all.  Even  the  man  who  acts  bravely  to  escape 
death  because  he  fears  death,  is,  according  to  Socrates, 
"courageous  only  from  fear."  This  is  not  a  disparage- 
ment of  prudential  self-abnegation,  except  in  so  far  as 
it  makes  self-evident  the  inferiority  of  such  conduct  to 
that  of  the  philosopher.  If  I  abandon  one  class  of  pleas- 
ures because  there  is  another  class  of  pleasures  which 
I  must  have,  my  thraldom  to  pleasure  at  the  end  of 
the  process  is  as  complete  as  at  the  beginning.  Such 
an  exchange  is  the  exchange  of  commerce,  not  of 
virtue: — 

1  Phaedo,  §  68. 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  207 

But  in  the  true  exchange  there  is  a  purging  away  of  all 
these  things,  and  temperance,  and  justice,  and  courage,  and 
wisdom  herself,  are  a  purgation  of  them.  And  I  conceive  that 
the  founders  of  the  mysteries  had  a  real  meaning  and  were 
not  mere  triflers  when  they  intimated  hi  a  figure  long  ago 
that  he  who  passed  unsanctified  and  uninitiated  into  the 
world  below  will  live  in  a  slough,  but  that  he  who  arrives 
there  after  initiation  and  purification  will  dwell  with  the 
gods.  For  "many,"  as  they  say  in  the  mysteries,  "are  the 
thyrsus-bearers,  but  few  are  the  mystics," — meaning,  as  I 
interpret  the  words,  the  true  philosophers.  In  the  number 
of  whom  I  have  been  seeking,  according  to  my  ability,  to 
find  a  place  during  my  whole  life;  whether  I  have  sought  in  a 
right  way  or  not,  and  whether  I  have  succeeded  or  not,  I 
shall  truly  know  in  a  little  while,  if  God  will,  when  I  myself 
arrive  in  the  other  world:  that  is  my  belief.1 

Thus  the  pursuit  of  virtue  requires  us  first  of  all  to 
discriminate  between  empirical  goods  and  those  qualita- 
tive goods  of  the  soul  which  are  eternal.  The  latter  are 
substantive,  whereas  the  former  are  only  adjectival. 
This  is  what  Emerson  has  in  mind  when  he  speaks  of 
becoming  "not  virtuous,  but  virtue."  With  this  doc- 
trine the  Phaedo  begins  and  ends;  and  the  mainte- 
nance of  it  is  the  real  purpose  of  the  long,  and  somewhat 
unprofitable,  discussion  which  intervenes  between  the 
two  ethical  affirmations. 

The  utilitarian  may  be  affronted  by  the  suggestion 
that  the  self-abnegation  which  looks  to  future  pleasure 
is  not  virtuous,  and  may  declare  that  Socrates  is  advocat- 
ing an  idle  and  purposeless  asceticism.  What  other 
reason  can  there  be,  he  may  ask,  for  giving  up  drink, 
for  reducing  one's  diet,  for  living  in  chastity,  than  the 

1  Phaedo,  §  69. 


208  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

maintenance  or  recovery  of  one's  health  and  physical 
fitness?  This  is  a  perfectly  natural  question  to  be  put 
in  an  age  which  has  invented  a  new  religion  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  making  the  body  healthful, — though,  to  be 
sure,  that  religion  offers  the  bewildering  paradox  of 
denying  the  existence  of  the  body  as  a  means  of  securing 
its  health.  Our  answer  must  be  that  health  is  good  not 
only  in  itself,  but  also  as  a  means  to  ends  which  are  more 
important  than  it,  and  for  the  sake  of  which  health  it- 
self, and  even  life,  must  at  need  be  sacrificed.  It  is  these 
ends  that  Socrates  has  in  view.  The  self-abnegation 
he  inculcates  is  quite  consistent  with  utilitarianism, 
unless  the  utilitarian  can  disprove  the  worth  of  the  end 
sought.  This,  however,  he  cannot  do;  for  the  good  that 
Socrates  seeks  is  the  realization  of  the  inherent  powers  of 
the  human  spirit,  which  are  hampered  or  frustrated  by 
its  slavery  to  bodily  cravings.  Now  the  unconditional 
acceptance  of  every  rational  creature 's  claim  to  true  self- 
realization  is  the  intuition  upon  which  utilitarianism 
reposes.1 

The  ascetics  of  the  degenerate  period  of  Christian 
history  would  have  been  horrified  by  the  assertion  that 
spiritual  perfection  is  an  inherent  and  inalienable  attri- 
bute of  man's  nature  which  can  be  actualized  in  this 
life.  Their  attempt  to  placate  the  devil  whom  they 
mistook  for  God,  by  all  sorts  of  insane  and  insanitary 

1  Cp.  the  discussion  of  the  intuitional  basis  of  Utilitarianism  in  Sidg- 
wick,  Methods  of  Ethics,  especially  Book  iii,  chap.  xiii.  He  there  says, 
"There  being  ...  no  actual  desire  ...  for  the  general  happiness,  the 
proposition  that  the  general  happiness  is  desirable  cannot  be  in  this  way 
established :  so  that  there  is  a  gap  in  the  expressed  argument,  which  can, 
I  think,  only  be  filled  by  some  such  proposition  as  that  which  I  have 
above  tried  to  exhibit  as  the  intuition  of  Rational  Benevolence." — P.  388, 
seventh  edition. 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  209 

mortifications  of  the  flesh,  is  a  superstitious  caricature 
of  the  Socratic  discipline.  For  Socrates  held  that  many 
kinds  of  bodily  pleasures  may  be  indulged  in,  provided 
one  has  so  completely  mastered  the  craving  for  them 
that  it  no  longer  hinders  the  development  and  the  free 
functioning  of  one's  mental  and  spiritual  powers.  We 
have  seen  l  that  he  could  drink  deeper  than  any  of  his 
companions:  but  he  was  never  drunk,  and  could  go  on 
with  the  hardest  kind  of  thinking  when  the  rest  of  the 
assembly  were  unable  to  stand  or  speak. 

The  ultimate  Greek  ideal,  to  be  sure,  is  the  same  as 
that  of  Christianity  at  its  highest.  Both  Aristotle  and 
Plato  are  convinced  that  the  noblest  state  of  man  is  that 
•of  contemplation.  To  see,  with  the  eye  of  the  soul,  per- 
fect goodness,  truth  and  beauty,  as  they  are  in  their  very 
nature  and  pure  essence,  and  not  as  momentary  gleams 
breaking  through  the  darkness  of  the  sense-world, — 
this  is  the  Beatific  Vision,  and  the  long-sustained  ac- 
tivity that  conducts  to  it  is  the  noblest  pursuit  open 
to  man.  It  is  not  formally  different  from  the  "end  of 
man"  as  defined  in  the  Westminster  Confession:  "To 
know  God  and  enjoy  Him  for  ever."  The  real  difference 
is  that  the  Westminster  Confession  lost  sight  of  the  fact 
that  God  is  nothing  but  Goodness,  Truth  and  Beauty, 
whilst  the  Greek  masters  kept  it  always  in  mind. 

Nothing  in  the  Phaedo  is  more  captivating  than  the 
divine  condescension  of  Socrates  to  the  confusion  and 
weakness  of  Simmias  and  Cebes,  who  in  a  very  human 
fashion  confess  to  the  instinctive  horror  of  death  after 
they  have  admitted  the  force  of  arguments  designed  to 
prove  the  indestructibility  of  the  soul.  It  is  difficult  to 
live  long  on  the  mountain-peaks  of  philosophic  insight; 
1  Ante,  p.  128, ».  i. 


210  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

and  the  two  Thebans  are  "haunted,  like  children,  with 
a  fear  that  when  the  soul  leaves  the  body,  the  wind  may 
really  blow  her  away  and  scatter  her."  Cebes,  with  a 
smile,  demands  that  Socrates  shall  argue  them  out  of 
their  fears:  "And  yet,  strictly  speaking,  they  are  not 
our  fears,  but  there  is  a  child  within  us,  to  whom  death 
is  a  sort  of  hobgoblin."  Long  and  hard  is  the  discipline 
by  which  we  can  be  emancipated  from  the  irrational 
fears  of  that  child  within.  Every  natural  craving  prompts 
us  to  cling  to  the  bodily  life,  to  linger  among  "  the  warm 
precincts  of  the  cheerful  day."  In  spite  of  our  philo- 
sophic conviction  of  the  spiritual  nature  of  the  soul,  we 
yet  have  vague  pictures  of  it  as  being  "blown  about  the 
desert  dust,  or  sealed  within  the  iron  hills."  Socrates, 
using  the  language  of  accommodation,  argues  that  it  is 
only  compounds  which  can  be  dissolved  and  scattered, 
but  that  the  soul  is  single  and  simple,  and  therefore 
irreducible.  He  is  here  using  a  physical  analogy — 
though  without  saying  so.  May  we  say  that  an  irrational 
argument  is  legitimate  for  allaying  an  irrational  terror? 
The  fear  admitted  by  Cebes  assumes  an  altogether  self- 
contradictory  notion  of  the  spirit.  It  supposes  that  the 
soul  is  in  the  body:  that  is,  that  it  is  material  and  spatial. 
How  else  could  it  be  blown  before  the  wind? 

Recovering  from  their  terror,  the  two  interlocutors 
proceed  to  test  Socrates  by  offering  further  objections. 
Simmias  urges  that  the  soul  is  related  to  the  body  as  the 
harmony  to  the  lyre.  He  is  promptly  disposed  of  by 
Socrates  with  the  retort  that  a  harmony  cannot  be 
"prior  to  the  elements  which  compose"  it,  whereas 
Simmias  has  already  admitted  that  the  soul  exists  before 
the  body.  Cebes  suggests  that,  though  the  soul  is  more 
enduring  than  its  physical  instrument,  there  is  no  proof 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  211 

that  it  may  not  cease  to  exist  after  it  has  worn  out  a  num- 
ber of  bodies: — 

The  parallel  which  I  will  suppose  is  that  of  an  old  weaver, 
who  dies,  and  after  his  death  somebody  says:  He  is  not  dead, 
he  must  be  alive:  and  he  appeals  to  the  coat  which  he  himself 
wove  and  wore,  and  which  is  still  whole  and  undecayed.  And 
then  he  proceeds  to  ask  of  someone  who  is  incredulous, 
whether  a  man  lasts  longer,  or  the  coat  which  is  in  use  and 
wear;  and  when  he  is  answered  that  a  man  lasts  far  longer, 
thinks  that  he  has  thus  certainly  demonstrated  the  survival 
of  the  man,  who  is  the  more  lasting,  because  the  less  lasting 
remains.  But  that,  Simmias,  as  I  would  beg  you  to  observe, 
is  not  the  truth;  everyone  sees  that  he  who  talks  thus  is 
talking  nonsense.  For  the  truth  is,  that  this  weaver,  having 
worn  and  woven  many  such  coats,  though  he  outlived  several 
of  them,  was  himself  outlived  by  the  last;  but  this  is  surely 
very  far  from  proving  that  a  man  is  slighter  and  weaker  than 
a  coat.  Now  the  relation  of  the  body  to  the  soul  may  be 
expressed  in  a  similar  figure;  for  you  may  say  with  reason  that 
the  soul  is  lasting,  and  the  body  weak  and  short-lived  in 
comparison.  And  every  soul  may  be  said  to  wear  out  many 
bodies,  especially  in  the  course  of  a  long  life.  For  if  while 
the  man  is  alive  the  body  deliquesces  and  decays,  and  yet  the 
soul  always  weaves  her  garment  anew  and  repairs  the  waste, 
then  of  course,  when  the  soul  perishes,  she  must  have  on  her 
last  garment,  and  this  only  will  survive  her;  but  then  again, 
when  the  soul  is  dead,  the  body  will  at  last  show  its  native 
weakness,  and  soon  pass  into  decay.  And  therefore  this  is  an 
argument  on  which  I  would  rather  not  rely  as  proving  that 
the  soul  exists  after  death.  For  suppose  that  we  grant  even 
more  than  you  affirm  as  within  the  range  of  possibility,  and 
besides  acknowledging  that  the  soul  existed  before  birth, 
admit  also  that  after  death  the  souls  of  some  are  existing  still, 
and  will  exist,  and  will  be  born  and  die  again  and  again,  and 
that  there  is  a  natural  strength  in  the  soul  which  will  hold 


212  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

out  and  be  born  many  times — for  all  this,  we  may  be  still 
inclined  to  think  that  she  will  weary  in  the  labours  of  succes- 
sive births,  and  may  at  last  succumb  in  one  of  her  deaths,  and 
utterly  perish;  and  this  death  and  dissolution  of  the  body 
which  brings  destruction  to  the  soul  may  be  unknown  to  any 
of  us,  for  no  one  of  us  can  have  had  any  experience  of  it: 
and  if  this  be  true,  then  I  say  that  he  who  is  confident  in 
death  has  but  a  foolish  confidence,  unless  he  is  able  to  prove 
that  the  soul  is  altogether  immortal  and  imperishable.  But 
if  he  is  not  able  to  prove  this,  he  who  is  about  to  die  will 
always  have  reason  to  fear  that  when  the  body  is  disunited, 
the  soul  also  may  utterly  perish.1 

The  charming  subtlety  of  this  argument  makes  it  an 
admirable  instrument  for  use  against  the  too  eager  people 
who  wish  to  find  scientific  proofs  of  a  future  life.  The 
moral  (or  non-moral)  root  of  their  desire  is  usually  no- 
thing but  the  unacknowledged  and  unexorcised  fear  of 
death.  They  have  not  risen  to  the  standpoint  of  eternity. 
They  want  an  assurance  that  the  dreadful  visitant  is  a 
good  fairy  in  disguise.  Convince  them  that  even  if  the 
death  of  "  this  machine"  is  not  a  finality,  yet  their  annihi- 
lation may  be  only  postponed  and  will  finally  occur,  and 
what  comfort  will  the  ghost-stories  of  the  seance-room 
hold  for  them?  Now,  this  refusal  to  rest  satisfied  with 
anything  short  of  a  positive  assurance  of  immortality  is 
due  to  a  misunderstanding  of  our  spiritual  needs.  It  is 
not  endless  life  that  we  crave:  it  is  spiritual  perfection, 
irrespective  of  duration;  eternity,  not  immortality.  As 
soon  as  the  eyes  of  the  soul  are  opened  and  it  understands 
its  own  needs  aright,  it  ceases  to  be  concerned  with  the 
question  of  its  duration,  and  is  absorbed  in  the  problem 
of  its  deserving. 

1  Phaedo,  §§  87-88. 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  213 

This  is  one  of  the  points  in  which  the  ethical  insight  of 
Plato  pierces  deeper  than  that  of  the  New  Testament. 
Jesus,  indeed,  says  but  little  of  a  life  after  death.  When 
he  mentions  it,  he  does  so  in  order  to  lay  down  a  doc- 
trine of  salvation  by  righteous  deeds,  which  is  in  stark 
contradiction  to  the  credal  theory  of  the  Church.1  St. 
Paul,  beginning  with  the  notion  of  bodily  resurrection, 
rises  by  degrees  to  the  thought  of  ethical  renewal.  In 
this  life  he  becomes  a  partaker  of  Christ's  resurrection, 
by  having  "the  same  mind  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus." 
But  in  general  the  Church  has  insisted  upon  that  side 
of  the  Pauline  doctrine  which  the  Apostle  has'  in  common 
with  the  apocalyptic  Judaism  of  his  time.  Even  to-day, 
there  is  much  more  discussion  in  the  Church  over  the 
supremely  unimportant  question  whether  the  body  of 
Jesus  left  the  grave  alive,  than  over  the  means  of  attain- 
ing to  that  quality  of  character  which  makes  the  ques- 
tion of  resurrection  and  continuance  insignificant.  The 
teaching  of  the  Church  should  be  that  men  may  believe 
as  their  own  judgment  dictates  about  the  question  of 
personal  immortality,  but  that  they  ought  to  rise  above 
the  desire  for  it.  If  it  is  to  be,  our  concern  should 
be  to  be  worthy  of  it;  but  if  not,  our  concern  is  the 
same. 

The  last  conversation  of  Socrates  with  his  friends 
closes  with  the  great  myth  of  the  Underworld,  in  which 
the  ethical  intuitions  are  reduced  to  pictorial  form.  At 
death,  the  genius  of  each  soul  carries  it  to  its  appropriate 
place  in  the  heart  of  the  earth,  where  it  is  judged  accord- 
ing to  its  deeds.  The  indifferent  characters  are  carried 
from  the  river  Acheron  to  the  Acherusian  lake,  there  to 
1  Matt,  xxv,  31  ff. 


214  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

dwell  in  purgatorial  penance  until  they  deserve  absolution 
from  their  sins.  Afterwards  they  obtain  the  reward  of 
their  good  deeds: 

But  those  who  appear  to  be  incurable  by  reason  of  the 
greatness  of  their  crimes — who  have  committed  many  and 
terrible  deeds  of  sacrilege,  murders  foul  and  violent,  or  the 
like — such  are  hurled  into  Tartarus,  which  is  their  suitable 
destiny;  and  they  never  come  out.1 

Lesser  criminals  are  plunged  for  a  year  in  the  Tartarean 
flames,  after  which  they  too  pass  to  the  purgatorial  lake, 
there  to  remain  "until  they  obtain  mercy  from  those  whom 
they  have  wronged:  for  that  is  the  sentence  inflicted  on 
them  by  their  judges."  Those  who  have  lived  holy 
lives,  and  have  duly  purified  themselves  with  "philo- 
sophy," "live  henceforth  altogether  without  the  body, 
in  mansions  fairer  far  than  these,  which  may  not  be 
described." 

The  fact  that  the  two  highest  systems  of  ethics  thus 
far  evolved — the  Platonic  and  the  Christian — have  both 
taught  a  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment,  is  exceedingly 
interesting.  Neither  teaches,  indeed,  the  barbaric  doc- 
trine of  Tertullian,  Augustine,  and  the  other  perverters 
who  degraded  Christianity  into  mediaeval  Catholicism. 
Neither  attaches  this  tremendous  penalty  to  error  of 
belief  or  to  the  misfortune  of  not  having  heard  some  true 
doctrine  or  experienced  some  magical  sacrament  which 
could  have  averted  it.  Both  insist  that  only  unrighteous 
deeds,  and  nothing  else,  can  incur  the  dire  judgment. 
Yet,  even  so,  the  myth  remains  shocking  to  us,  until  we 
divine  the  truth  which  it  is  meant  to  express.  This  is  the 
deep  sense  which  the  greatest  seers — Plato  and  Jesus — 
1Phaedo,  §113,  ad  fin. 


IMMORTALITY:  A  STUDY  IN  PLATO  215 

had  of  the  qualitative  degradation  of  the  soul  through 
evil  deeds.  Those  who  go  into  Tartarus  for  ever  are  the 
incurable.  They  are  not  sent  thither  by  the  arbitrary 
fiat  of  any  judge.  Through  their  own  acts  they  have 
become  incapable  of  any  other  destiny.  If  the  good  that 
man  can  attain  in  this  life  is  an  eternal  one,  then  we  may 
surely  say  (in  myth)  that  the  necessary  consequence  of 
its  deliberate  forfeiture  is  also  eternal.  The  wilful  loss 
of  any  opportunity  for  spiritual  self-realization  is  an 
"eternal  punishment."  The  doctrine  is  in  this  sense 
true,  even  though  there  be  no  life  after  death. 

Plato  ends  as  he  began — not  with  metaphysical  specu- 
lations, but  with  the  ethical  application  of  the  whole 
argument: — 

Wherefore  I  say,  let  a  man  be  of  good  cheer  about  his  soul, 
who  has  cast  away  the  pleasures  and  ornaments  of  the  body 
as  alien  to  him,  and  rather  hurtful  in  their  effects,  and  has 
followed  after  the  pleasures  of  knowledge  in  this  life;  who  has 
adorned  the  soul  in  her  own  proper  jewels,  which  are  tem- 
perance, and  justice,  and  courage,  and  nobility,  and  truth. 
In  these  arrayed,  she  is  ready  to  go  on  her  journey  to  the 
world  below,  when  her  time  comes.1 

This  is  the  thing  that  is  more  important  than  im- 
mortality. The  yearning  for  that  is  commonly  (though 
not  necessarily,  and  not  always)  a  disguised  desire  to 
escape  death.  But,  in  the  words  of  the  Apology,  "the 
difficulty  is  not  to  avoid  death,  but  to  avoid  unright- 
eousness." To  him  who  cares  only  for  that,  the  per- 
sonal interest  of  the  question  of  life  after  death  is 
destroyed. 

The  strongest  inducement  offered  in  the  Phaedo  to 

1  Sections  114-15. 


216  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

belief  in  immortality  is  not  any  of  its  arguments,  but  the 
character  of  Socrates  himself.  He  is  so  transcendently 
great  in  the  hour  of  his  freely  chosen  doom  that  he  creates 
(as  Jowett  has  said)  "in  the  mind  of  the  reader  an  im- 
pression stronger  than  could  be  derived  from  arguments 
that  such  a  one,  in  his  own  language,  has  in  him  '  a  prin- 
ciple which  does  not  admit  of  death.'"  It  is  hard  to 
resist  the  feeling  that  the  final  destruction  of  such  a  per- 
sonality would  represent  a  sort  of  suicide  of  the  universe — 
through  the  destruction  of  its  noblest  possible  manifesta- 
tion. We  fall  back,  accordingly,  on  the  intuition  that  if 
Socrates  is  not  immortal,  he  is  something  better  than 
immortal:  he  is  eternal.  His  spirit  lived  again  in  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  and  in  lesser  degree  in  all  whom  they  have 
inspired.  In  the  measure  in  which  it  lives  in  us,  we  shall 
rise  with  him  above  the  fear  of  death  and  the  craving  for 
endless  life,  into  the  fairer  mansion  that  is  eternally  open 
to  the  soul  which  is  adorned  in  its  own  proper  jewels. 

Yet  to  the  end  we  must  be  content  to  wait  and  wonder 
whether  the  personal  self-consciousness  that  was  in  him, 
and  that  which  is  in  us,  retains  its  selfhood  and  con- 
tinues to  live  and  act  after  this  scene  closes.  The 
patient  Sphinx  disdains  our  questioning: 

We  ask  and  ask:  thou  smilest,  and  art  still, 
Out-topping  knowledge. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY 

RELIGION  is  an  inexpugnable  fact  of  human  life.  At 
times  it  seems  to  sway  with  resistless  power  the  con- 
sciousness of  individuals  and  the  destinies  of  States  and 
empires;  at  other  times,  again,  its  hold  on  men  and 
polities  seems  almost  ended.  The  strife  of  new  philo- 
sophies, the  emergence  of  convictions  based  on  changing 
knowledge  as  to  the  make  of  the  world,  the  ambitions  of 
kings  and  "fierce  democracies,"  the  shifting  of  human 
attention  from  the  gods  to  the  economic  forces  that 
condition  daily  life — all  these  things  by  turns  drive 
religion  from  the  foreground  of  the  collective  conscious- 
ness; and  at  first  glance  this  repression  seems  identical 
with  extinction.  It  is  not  so  in  truth,  however.  The 
forces  of  religion  are  but  driven  underground,  whence 
they  again  emerge — for  another  time,  if  not  within  the 
life-span  of  the  generation  that  has  banished  them — in 
new  outbreaks  of  destroying  and  creating  activity. 

We  live  in  such  a  period  of  the  seeming  extinction  of 
religion  to-day.  Here,  as  in  every  European  country, 
except  perhaps  Spain  and  Russia,  other  interests  are 
usurping  its  old-time  supremacy.  The  collective  minds 
of  nations  are  given  up  to  secular  concerns.  In  nation 
after  nation  Churches  are  being  disestablished.  New 
commonwealths  are  arising  which  omit  the  name  of  God 
from  their  constitutions,  and  which  exclude  themselves — 
as  this  country  did  from  the  first — from  the  right  and 
217 


218  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

power  to  "make  any  law  respecting  an  establishment  of 
religion."  Thus  more  and  more  religion  is  conceived  of  as 
the  personal  and  private  affair  of  individuals,  who  may  in 
its  interest  organize  themselves  into  voluntary  societies, 
but  who  may  not  demand  for  it  national  recognition.  It 
is  not  felt  to  have  any  fundamental  or  organic  connection 
with  the  life  and  destiny  of  nations  and  States,  and  these 
as  such  are  held  to  have  no  right  to  establish,  endow  or 
assume  responsibility  for  any  Church  or  Churches. 

I  do  not  believe  that  a  State  Church  or  Churches,  in 
the  sense  in  which  such  Churches  are  established  in 
England  and  Germany,  should  be  set  up  in  this  country. 
The  purpose  of  the  present  chapter  is  not  to  plead  for  a 
State  Church,  but  to  draw  attention  to  the  relation  of 
religion  to  nationality,  in  the  belief  that  by  a  correct 
understanding  of  the  actual  facts  of  life  religion  will  be 
humanized  and  nationality  spiritualized.  The  Churches 
should  become  aware  of  their  national  function,  and  the 
nation  of  its  religious  function.  Only  so  is  the  recon- 
ciliation of  our  spiritual  enmities  and  the  attainment  of 
our  ideal  national  destiny  possible.  Such,  at  least,  is  the 
thesis  which  I  shall  now  attempt  to  establish. 

It  remains  to  be  decided,  by  reference  to  the  hard  logic 
of  experience,  whether  the  exclusion  of  an  inevitable  and 
deep-seated  interest  of  the  spirit  of  man  from  the  purview 
of  the  national  consciousness  is  expedient,  or  even  per- 
manently possible.  We  cannot  bar  out  religion  from 
the  sphere  of  the  common  life  simply  by  declaring  that  it 
ought  to  be  so  excluded.  If  religion  be  in  natural  fact  a 
force  co-extensive  with  nationality,  and  vital  to  the 
normal  and  efficient  functioning  of  commonwealths,  then 
no  antipathy  of  individuals  to  it,  and  no  desire  on  the 
part  of  statesmen  to  humiliate  or  destroy  Churches,  can 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  219 

prevent  such  an  irrepressible  force  from  sooner  or  later 
reasserting  itself  and  compelling  its  recognition  at  the 
hands  of  governments.  "Things,"  says  the  wise  truism, 
"are  what  they  are,  and  their  consequences  will  be  what 
they  will  be."  We  have  seen  many  times  in  history  how 
kings  and  parties  have  been  forced,  against  their  will,  to 
recognize  principles  which  they  hated,  and  to  act  in  their 
legislation  upon  doctrines  which  with  their  lips  they 
denied  and  denounced.  Thus  it  has  been  that  for  more 
than  fifty  years  both  the  great  political  parties  in  Eng- 
land have  been  legislating  upon  communistic  principles, 
which,  in  their  theoretical  formulation,  are  repudiated 
and  anathematized  by  the  leaders  of  those  parties.  Her- 
bert Spencer  was  unquestionably  right  in  asserting,  in 
The  Man  versus  the  State,  that  English  Liberalism  had 
undergone  a  complete  change  of  principle  in  the  middle 
decades  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Measures  animated 
by  the  fundamental  spirit  of  socialism  are  being  passed 
every  year  by  Liberal  and  Conservative  Governments, 
whose  members  occupy  their  leisure  hours  in  preaching 
and  writing  eloquent  denunciations  of  socialism  and  all 
its  works.  Since  the  war  began,  the  English  Cabinet  has 
done  a  hundred  things  which  in  times  of  peace,  when 
Socialists  demanded  them,  had  been  declared  visionary 
and  impossible.  Thus,  too,  in  this  country  it  has  come 
about  that  a  President  and  party  whose  political  tradition 
and  personal  convictions  bind  them  to  Rousseau's 
Contrat  Social  theory  of  society — to  the  upholding  of 
the  rights  of  individual  States  and  the  restriction  of  the 
functions  of  the  Federal  Government — are  daily  driven 
to  action  destructive  of  that  theory,  because  implicitly 
affirming  the  illimitable  authority  of  the  central  Govern- 
ment over  all  constituent  parts  of  the  nation. 


220  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

The  lesson  of  these  and  similar  incontrovertible  facts 
is  plain  for  all  to  read.  No  political  theory,  no  constitution 
and  no  legislation  which  are  not  truly  in  harmony  with  the 
nature  of  things  can  endure.  The  personal  desires  and 
antipathies  of  men  and  nations  must  sooner  or  later  be 
subordinated  to  the  intractable  realities  of  existence,  or 
else  those  men  and  nations  will  suffer  shipwreck. 

One  of  these  realities  is  the  natural  and  inevitable 
connection  between  religion  and  nationality.  The  his- 
toric fact  of  the  continuous  interaction  and  interdepend- 
ence between  nations  and  Churches  was  an  inevitable 
outcome  of  the  spiritual  nature  and  social  exigencies  of 
man.  It  was  not  an  arbitrary  result  of  the  ambitions  or 
interests  of  kings  and  priests.  The  greatness  of  States 
has  waxed  and  waned  step  by  step  with  the  waxing  and 
waning  of  religion  as  an  ethical  and  nation-moulding 
force.  The  strength  of  kingdoms  and  commonwealths 
has  never  lain  primarily  in  their  economic  or  military 
resources;  but  their  control  of  these  things  was  itself  an 
outgrowth  of  that  idealistic  patriotism  which  is  a  vital 
expression  of  religion.  The  internal  decay  of  the  latter 
has  always,  and  necessarily,  preceded  and  caused  the 
decline  of  the  former;  and  never  has  any  nation  recovered 
from  economic  crisis  or  from  military  or  political  over- 
throw except  as  its  people  have  been  ideally  bound 
together  in  devotion  to  its  spiritual  and  temporal 
ends. 

Religion,  moreover,  has  demonstrated  itself  to  be  the 
only  force  which  can  ensure  the  resurrection  and  im- 
mortality of  nationhood  after  a  body  politic  has  been 
crucified  by  alien  powers.  Thus  was  it  with  ancient 
Judaism,  and  thus  is  it  in  modern  Ireland.  The  unifica- 
tion of  Italy  in  the  nineteenth  century  was  effected  only 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  221 

when  the  sentiment  voiced  by  Mazzini,  that  "Italy  is 
itself  a  religion,"  became  dominant  in  the  breasts  of  her 
patriotic  sons.  In  mediaeval  Germany,  while  there  was 
no  political  or  economic  unity,  religion  proved  itself  to  be 
a  force  that  bound  all  Germans  together;  and  that 
idealism  which  brought  about  the  political  unification  of 
Germany  in  the  eighteen-seventies  was  in  its  essence  as 
much  religious  as  political  or  militaristic.  Even  to-day, 
the  Kaiser's  fantastic  claim  to  be  the  representative  and 
vicegerent  of  God  expresses  and  answers  to  a  sentiment 
deeply  rooted  in  the  nation  over  which  he  rules.  He  is, 
to  those  whose  vision  is  not  distorted  by  occultistic 
theories,  and  who  have  learned  to  interpret  facts  ex- 
pressed in  theological  language  at  their  sociological  value, 
visibly  as  much  the  pontifex  maximus  as  the  imperator  of 
Germany. 

In  England,  there  have  taken  place  within  the  last  two 
centuries  a  gradual  transference  of  the  prerogatives  of 
the  monarchy  to  the  Cabinet,  and  through  it  indirectly 
to  the  electorate;  and  a  virtual  extinction  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church  as  a  national  force.  It  has  not,  however, 
been  generally  perceived  that  these  changes  have  approx- 
imately corresponded  with  an  assumption  by  the  State 
of  functions  hitherto  considered  exclusively  religious  and 
ecclesiastical.  The  identity  of  purpose  and  result  be- 
tween many  things  now  done  by  the  State  and  things 
formerly  done  by  the  Church  will  be  clear  to  all  who  are 
not  hypnotized  by  names.  For  the  rite  of  baptism 
(which  meant  sociologically  the  recognition  and  assump- 
tion of  responsibility  for  each  new  individual  life  by  the 
community)  is  now  substituted  registration  by  the 
State;  and  even  those  who  most  bitterly  resented  com- 
pulsory baptism  find  nothing  objectionable  in  the  coer- 


222  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

cion  exercised  by  the  State  in  the  matter  of  registration. 
The  reason  is  that  men  are  never  conscious  of  constraint 
or  resentful  of  compulsion  in  things  which  they  see  to  be 
of  prime  social  necessity.  This  in  the  case  of  registration 
is  obvious  to  them;  in  the  case  of  baptism,  the  very  same 
necessity  was  concealed  by  the  supernaturalistic  impli- 
cations of  the  sacrament, 

In  the  same  way,  even  among  the  bitterest  opponents 
of  compulsory  ecclesiastical  marriage,  none  save  extreme 
anarchists  are  found  to  object  to  compulsory  civil  mar- 
riage; and  this  again  for  the  reason  that  they  perceive 
in  the  latter  an  absolute  need,  arising  from  the  nature  of 
things  and  the  organic  structure  of  human  society.  This 
it  was,  and  not  the  alleged  supernaturalistic  institution 
of  monogamy,  which  explained  and  justified  the  enforced 
matrimonial  ceremony  of  the  Church;  and  the  decline  of 
the  Church  in  the  loyalty  and  reverence  of  men  did  not 
and  could  not  abrogate  the  natural  necessity  in  response 
to  which  the  Church  had  functioned. 

Yet  more  striking  is  the  assent,  even  of  the  most  rigor- 
ously anti-religious  and  anti-ecclesiastical  thinkers,  to 
the  establishment  of  universal  and  compulsory  education 
by  modern  States.  For  fully  fourteen  centuries,  the 
Church  had  been  the  only  educator  of  Europe.  In  the 
main,  its  functioning  in  that  capacity  was  lamentably 
inefficient;  yet  by  the  common  consent  of  men  and  na- 
tions it  was  recognized  as  the  natural  and  rightful  de- 
positary of  this  national  responsibility.  The  Church's 
monopoly  of  education,  and  the  fact  that  "instruction" 
was  synonymous  with  "religious  instruction,"  is  testi- 
fied to  by  the  unerring  evidence  of  language,  which  pre- 
serves to  this  day  the  tradition  identifying  a  clerk  with 
a  dericus.  Throughout  English  history,  until  recent 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  223 

times,  a  man  who  could  read  and  write  was  thereby  en- 
titled to  certain  legal  privileges,  known  as  "  benefit  of 
clergy."  The  decline  of  the  traditional  Church  has 
synchronized  precisely  with  the  rise  of  the  demand  that 
the  function  of  educator  should  be  assumed  by  the  State. 
It  is  interesting  to  observe,  moreover,  that  the  pressure 
of  necessity  is  forcing  the  most  anti-ecclesiastical  of 
modern  States  to  transform  their  educational  codes  from 
mere  vehicles  of  the  rudiments  of  "secular"  knowledge 
into  media  for  the  imparting  of  moral  truth  and  for  the 
awakening  and  guidance  of  idealistic  aspirations.  This 
process  is  taking  place  before  our  eyes  to-day  in  America 
and  France,  and  has  already  gone  far  in  England. 

The  contention,  then,  is  that — since  things  do  not  lose 
their  identity  when  they  undergo  a  change  of  name — all 
modern  States  are  in  fact  Churches,  at  least  to  the  extent 
to  which  they  assume  and  discharge  the  historic  func- 
tions of  Churches.  The  continuity  of  these  modern 
national  and  civic  undertakings  with  those  of  the  medi- 
aeval Church  could  be  demonstrated  even  down  to  details 
too  minute  to  fall  within  the  scope  of  the  present  volume. 
For  example,  no  student  can  fail  to  perceive  the  socio- 
logical identity  between  the  ecclesiastical  conditions  for 
ordination  and  the  tests  of  knowledge  and  character 
imposed  by  modern  States  on  all  candidates  for  the 
teaching  profession,  and  upon  magistrates  and  other 
functionaries  who  are  empowered  to  perform  marriages, 
to  register  births  and  deaths,  to  hear  confessions  of  sin 
(albeit  in  the  law-court  instead  of  the  church),  to  impose 
penances,  and  to  remit  or  retain  the  sins  confessed  by 
or  proved  against  the  delinquents  with  whom  they  deal. 

If,  then,  it  be  the  State  which  celebrates  our  sacra- 
ments and  acts  as  our  teacher,  substituting  a  nurture 


224  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

and  admonition  on  behalf  of  its  own  ideals  and  enduring 
interests  for  the  traditional  "nurture  and  admonition 
of  the  Lord,"  it  necessarily  follows  that  the  State  to-day 
is  in  so  far  a  Church. 

It  is  true  that  States  do  not  presume  to  interest  them- 
selves in  the  life  of  individual  citizens  after  death,  or  in 
the  precise  details  of  their  theological  beliefs.  Yet  they 
do  take  enprmous  pains  to  produce  such  conduct,  and 
even  such  beliefs,  in  their  citizens  as  shall  secure  the  im- 
mortality of  the  nations  whose  brain  and  soul  they  are. 
The  sociological  student  can  clearly  see  that  the  ancient 
insistence  of  Christendom  on  theological  orthodoxy  and 
uniformity  of  creed  was  actually,  if  unconsciously,  mo- 
tived by  the  same  social  necessity  which  to-day  leads  the 
United  States  to  prohibit  anarchists  and  polygamists 
from  entering  her  borders,  which  in  recent  years  led 
France  to  imprison  Gustave  Herve  for  preaching  a 
"strike  against  war"  among  the  conscripts  of  her  army, 
and  which  forced  England,  not  long  ago,  to  compel  the 
resignation  of  a  Minister  of  War  who  had  shown  signs 
of  tolerating  in  the  military  caste  opinions  and  conduct 
destructive  of  the  army's  usefulness  as  an  organ  of  the 
Government. 

Thus  the  actual  reason  why  freedom  of  theological 
opinion  is  tolerated  in  modern  nations  is  because  uni- 
formity in  such  opinion  is  no  longer  held  to  be  essential 
to  national  safety  and  stability.  Of  any  beliefs  which, 
if  diffused  and  acted  on  by  large  masses  of  men,  would 
result  in  the  overthrow  of  government  and  the  destruc- 
tion or  even  the  serious  imperilling  of  the  nation,  modern 
States  are  by  natural  necessity  as  intolerant  as  were 
mediaeval  ones  of  theological  heterodoxy.  Australia,  for 
example,  has  of  late  years  coerced  Quakers  to  violate 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  225 

their  consciences  by  enlisting  in  her  conscript  army.  Her 
procedure  may  indeed  be  unjustifiable;  but  it  was  un- 
mistakably prompted  by  the  same  motive  which  caused 
the  Roman  Empire  to  insist  on  Christians  paying  rever- 
ence to  the  statues  of  its  deified  emperors,  which  in- 
duced the  Catholic  Church  to  persecute  all  deviators 
from  its  accepted  formulae,  and  which  led  the  English 
Government,  after  the  Restoration  of  1660,  to  make 
the  taking  of  Holy  Communion  according  to  the  An- 
glican rite  a  test  for  admission  to  civil  and  political 
offices. 

The  argument  thus  far  set  forth  needs  justifying  and 
developing  by  two  further  considerations.  The  first 
is,  that  not  merely  is  the  modern  State  in  truth  a  Church, 
but  that  all  nations,  as  such,  have  always  been  Churches. 
The  second  is,  that  the  modern  nation  is  dangerously 
inefficient  on  the  spiritual  side  by  reason  of  its  unaware- 
ness  of  its  true  nature.  No  society  can  discharge  any 
task  with  the  attainable  maximum  of  efficiency  if  it  be 
unconscious  of  the  real  nature  and  end  of  the  activities 
in  which  it  is  engaged. 

That  nations  have  always  been  Churches  is  a  proposi- 
tion which  will  be  rejected  as  self-evidently  absurd  only 
by  those  who  hold  that  religion  is  exclusively  engaged 
with  the  supernatural.  Whoever  admits  that  the  func- , 
tion  of  religion  has  been,  at  least  in  part,  to  inculcate 
standards  of  conduct  necessary  for  the  elevation  of  hu- 
man society  in  this  life,  must  admit  that  it  has  been  to 
this  extent  an  important  auxiliary  to  secular  govern- 
ments. Nor  can  it  be  denied,  in  view  of  many  well-known 
facts  of  sociology  and  history,  that  the  special  standards 
of  conduct  which  religion  dictated  and  sanctioned  were 
always  those  desired  by  the  relatively  far-sighted  few  in 


226  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

whom  the  tribal  or  national  consciousness  resided,  and 
to  whom  was  committed  the  working  out  of  the  common 
destiny.  The  almost  universal  combination  in  early 
societies  of  regal  and  sacerdotal  duties  in  the  same  person 
is  an  illustration  of  this  fact.  Where  we  find  the  offices 
differentiated,  there  is  nevertheless  complete  interde- 
pendence between  the  royal  and  priestly  functionaries. 
If  the  king  is  not  the  head  of  the  Church,  then  the  Church 
is,  so  to  speak,  the  head  of  the  king.  The  priest  is  the 
king-maker,  if  the  king  is  not  the  priest-maker;  and 
either  state  of  the  facts  sufficiently  testifies  to  the  socio- 
logical identity  between  religion  and  nationality. 

The  history  of  the  ancient  Jews,  in  which  these  facts 
are  incontestable,  was  by  no  means  so  exceptional  as  it  is 
commonly  supposed  to  have  been.  In  many  other  com- 
munities it  was  equally  an  essential  part  of  good  citizen- 
ship for  a  man  to  worship  the  gods  believed  in  by  the 
State.  So  much  was  this  the  case  in  ancient  Greece  that 
Socrates,  as  we  have  seen,  was  condemned  and  executed 
for  alleged  disbelief  in  the  accepted  deities  of  his  city. 

Now,  what  these  typical  and  familiar  facts  signify 
is  that  tribal  gods  and  national  religions  have  never  been 
anything  but  the  objectification  and  crystallization  of 
whatsoever  ideals  and  standards  of  conduct  were  held  to 
be  necessary  to  national  well-being,  stability  and  per- 
manence. To  worship  no  gods  at  all  meant,  or  was  taken 
to  mean,  indifference  to  or  contempt  for  the  national 
code  of  morality.  To  worship  alien  gods  was  equivalent 
to  treason.  An  ancient  Jew  who  indulged  in  the  sensuous 
polytheism  of  neighbouring  tribes  was  acting  in  a  way 
which,  if  universalized,  would  have  involved  the  annihi- 
lation of  the  Jewish  national  consciousness,  through  the 
absorption  of  the  Hebrew  people  in  other  nations.  Hence 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  227 

the  first  Commandment,1  and  the  denunciations  of  idol- 
atry by  prophets  and  lawgivers.  And  in  like  manner, 
contempt  for  the  gods  of  Athens  was  punished  because 
to  the  Athenians  it  meant  contempt  for  the  laws  of 
Athens. 

A  nation,  in  truth,  is  never  a  mere  accidental  aggre- 
gation of  persons  born  in  a  given  geographical  area;  nor 
is  it  merely  a  unit  of  economic,  political  or  military  life. 
That  which  is  above  and  beyond  all  these  things,  and 
indeed  determines  their  evolution,  is  what  New  Yorkers 
humorously  declare  Boston  to  be:  "a  state  of  mind." 
That  is,  a  nation  is  a  social  unit  animated  by  conscious  or 
unconscious  common  interests  and  by  an  intelligent  or 
instinctive  devotion  to  common  ideal  ends.  It  is  more 
than  the  arithmetical  sum  of  its  inhabitants  at  any 
moment,  for  it  is  the  historic  spirit  which  has  begotten 
each  of  its  members,  and  which  causes  those  mental  and 
spiritual  peculiarities  in  them  which  differentiate  them 
from  all  other  peoples.  It  is  that  Universal — in  the 
Aristotelian  if  not  in  the  Platonic  sense — which  they 
individually  embody  and  illustrate. 

England,  for  example,  is  the  creator  of  all  Englishmen. 
She  is  the  source  of  the  deepest  selfhood  of  each  of  them — 
of  their  language  and  modes  of  thought,  and  even  of  the 
wholly  unconscious  presuppositions  which  regulate  all 
their  thinking  and  all  their  deeds.  That  Englishmen  in 
general,  like  the  citizens  of  most  other  nations,  are  un- 

1  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Pentateuchal  decalogues  are  not 
"monotheistic"  in  any  metaphysical  or  philosophic  sense.  The  phrase 
mistranslated  in  the  English  versions  (Deut.  vi,  4)  to  read  "Hear,  O 
Israel:  the  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord,"  really  means,  "Hear,  O  Israel, 
Yahwe  is  our  God,  Yahwe  alone."  It  is  thus  consistent  with  the  first 
Commandment,  which  admits  the  existence  of  other  gods  by  prohibiting 
their  worship. 


228  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

aware  of  this  fact,  proves  nothing  against  it.  As  Seeley — 
the  one  great  modern  English  philosopher  of  religious 
nationalism — has  pointed  out,  we  are  commonly  un- 
conscious of  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere  which  we 
breathe;  yet  that  atmosphere  is  the  most  omnipresent 
and  ineludible  fact  of  our  experience.  And  if  the  truth 
of  one's  vital  and  organic  dependence  upon  one's  nation 
is  hidden  from  the  stay-at-home  native,  it  nevertheless 
becomes  speedily  apparent  to  any  thoughtful  man  who 
travels  abroad.  The  first  impression  one  gets  on  landing 
in  America,  for  instance,  is  that  it  is  not  these  swarming 
millions  of  people,  with  their  obvious  differences  from  all 
other  speakers  of  the  English  tongue,  who  make  America, 
but  that  it  is  America  which  has  made  them.  The  nation 
is  the  elan  vital,  the  brooding  Oversoul,  which  engenders 
the  individual  soul  of  each  citizen. 

To  be  sure,  the  universal  humanity  in  all  men  is  one 
and  the  same,  just  as,  no  doubt,  the  pigments  used  by 
the  painters  of  Renaissance  Italy  were  identical  with 
those  used  by  the  artists  of  the  Flemish  school.  But 
this  uniform  viscous  medium  is  manipulated  and  dis- 
tributed by  the  soul  of  each  nation  into  forms  that  differ 
from  each  other  as  much  as  the  pictures  of  the  Flemish 
school  differ  from  those  of  the  Italian.  Or,  to  take  an- 
other illustration,  it  is  undeniable  that  the  sounds  and 
letters  which  make  up  the  French  language  are  the  same 
as  those  into  which  English  is  analyzable,  and  both 
tongues  are  regulated  by  identical  principles  of  gram- 
matical logic.  Yet  the  striking  fact  about  these  two 
languages  is  not  their  similarity,  but  their  unlikeness. 
So  is  it  with  a  man  begotten  and  born  of  the  pervading 
historical  soul  called  England,  as  compared  with  one 
engendered  by  that  other  overarching  spiritual  unity 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  229 

whose  name  is  China.  The  two  men  are  compact  of  the 
same  physical  organs,  which  in  both  cases  prefigure  the 
same  functions  and  demand  the  same  psychic  satis- 
factions. The  synthesis  of  primal  instincts  is  the  same 
in  each,  and  both  possess  the  same  framework  of  rational 
and  extra-rational  mentality.  Yet  the  two  are  stamped 
and  sundered  by  the  entire  difference  of  history,  cir- 
cumstance and  ideal  aspiration  between  England  and 
China  for  two  thousand  years.  A  human  being,  at  any 
given  moment,  is  psychologically  definable  as  a  system 
of  impulses  in  unstable  equilibrium;  but  the  special 
character  and  direction  of  these  impulses  is  in  every 
case  due  to  the  fact  of  his  affiliation  with  one  par- 
ticular reservoir  of  living  national  tradition,  rather  than 
another. 

The  most  significant  and  precious  gift,  then,  of  any 
nation  to  its  children  consists  of  the  super-temporal 
group-consciousness  embodied  in  its  laws,  its  ideals, 
its  art  and  literature,  and  its  proverbial  wisdom.  Yet 
not  even  in  these  characteristic  expressions  does  a  nation 
truly  live.  The  essence  of  any  commonwealth  is  that 
spirit  in  it  which  creates  these  things,  which  proclaims 
itself  not  only  in  positive  laws  and  institutions  but  also 
in  the  impulse  of  innovators  and  reformers.  When  a 
people  lives  by  a  borrowed  religious  creed,  that  creed 
is  inevitably  modified  in  its  social  application  by  the 
total  psychic  atmosphere  with  which  it  becomes  blended. 
Thus  in  pre-Reformation  Europe,  despite  the  cosmopo- 
litanism of  the  Church,  Catholicism  uttered  itself  in  the 
different  countries  in  definitely  individualized  mintings. 
Gallicanism,  like  Anglicanism,  was  a  special  incarnation 
of  the  common  spiritual  energy  of  the  Continent.  And 
to-day  an  orthodox  Jew  from  Russia  is  different  from 


230  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

an  English  orthodox  Jew  not  merely  in  physical  type, 
but  in  his  whole  scale  of  moral  and  spiritual  values,  and 
in  his  conception  of  the  possibilities  and  impossibilities 
of  personal  and  social  achievement.  All  Englishmen — 
Catholics,  Anglicans,  Methodists,  Jews  and  free  thinkers 
— are  immensely  more  alike  than  different,  and  are 
characterized  far  more  by  the  fact  of  their  nationality 
than  by  their  theological  belief.  There  is  actually  more 
in  common  between  an  English  Catholic  and  an  English 
Agnostic  than  between  an  English  and  an  Italian  Cath- 
olic. If  you  meet  an  American  in  any  city  of  Europe, 
you  shall  recognize  him  at  once  as  an  American,  but 
never  (unless  he  tells  you)  as  an  Episcopalian,  a  Metho- 
dist or  a  Mormon.  So  much  more  are  men  qualified 
and  characterized  by  their  nationality  than  by  their 
theological  creed.  The  influence  of  nationality  is  so 
pervasive  and  ineludible  that  in  any  crisis  it  grinds  to 
powder  all  the  barriers  of  class  and  philosophy  by  which 
men  separate  themselves  from  their  fellows. 

Thus  history  and  experience  abundantly  prove  the 
truth  of  the  contention  that  nationality  is  a  spiritual 
and  psychic  rather  than  a  physical  fact.  A  nation  is 
ordinarily  characterized  by  its  occupation  of  a  given 
geographical  area,  as  well  as  by  unity  and  continuity  of 
consciousness  through  time.  The  former  is  necessary 
to  its  efficient  functioning;  but  the  latter  alone  is  essen- 
tial to  its  continued  existence.  There  are  many  cases  on 
record  of  the  break-up  and  disappearance  of  nations 
through  the  dissipation  of  conscious  spiritual  unity.  The 
extinction  of  ancient  commonwealths,  such  as  Assyria, 
Persia,  Egypt,  and  Greece,  does  not  mean  that  the  people 
constituting  them  were  ever  annihilated.  It  means 
only  that  the  unified  consciousness  which  had  expressed 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  231 

itself  in  their  laws,  religion,  art,  and  customs  was  de- 
stroyed. The  physical  representatives  of  all  of  them 
are  still  with  us,  and  for  the  most  part  are  still  occupying 
their  ancient  territory.  But  that  common  consciousness, 
that  general  will,  which  in  Egypt  built  the  Pyramids  and 
wrote  the  Book  of  the  Dead,  is  gone.  The  Greeks  of 
to-day,  despite  some  blending,  are  the  authentic  physical 
descendants  of  the  contemporaries  of  Pericles  and  Soc- 
rates; yet  they  can  scarcely  be  called  the  same  nation. 
Centuries  of  alien  dominance  brought  about  the  dis- 
integration of  that  consciousness  which  had  expressed 
itself  in  the  Parthenon,  in  the  Acropolis,  and  in  the 
philosophy  and  drama  which  were  the  fountain  heads 
of  European  thought  and  literature.  Under  favourable 
circumstances,  no  doubt,  "the  world's  great  age  begins 
anew,  the  golden  years  return";  and  the  development 
which  the  Battle  of  Navarino  inaugurated  in  1827  ex- 
presses at  least  the  possibility  of  a  resurrection  of  that 
ancient  unity  of  ideal  and  purpose.  But  the  very  need 
of  a  resurrection  testifies  to  the  death  which  preceded. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  have  in  the  case  of  the  Jews 
an  instance  of  the  preservation  of  nationality  without 
territorial  unity  or  political  autonomy.  Unique  as  this 
instance  is,  there  is  nothing  mysterious  in  it — nothing, 
that  is,  that  cannot  be  traced  to  adequate  social  causes. 
The  weakness  and  constant  peril  of  the  Jewish  political 
State,  surrounded  as  it  was  by  powerful  and  ambitious 
neighbours,  had  from  the  first  produced  an  uncommon 
intensification  of  the  sense  of  spiritual  unity  and  ideal 
loyalty  among  the  Hebrew  people.  When  their  crisis 
came,  and  they  were  politically  overthrown  and  dis- 
persed about  the  world,  their  statesmanship  deliberately 
set  itself  the  task  of  devising  instruments  for  the  preser- 


232  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

vation  of  their  conscious  unity, — instruments  which 
should  be  independent  both  of  territorial  and  of  po- 
litical sovereignty.  How  this  scheme  was  carried  out 
can  be  seen  in  part  in  the  book  of  Ezekiel,  the  later  Old 
Testament  writings,  and  some  of  the  Apocrypha.  Jeru- 
salem remained,  indeed,  as  it  still  does,  the  centre  of 
Jewish  hope,  aspiration,  and  devotion;  but  the  necessity 
for  personal  attendance  there  was  obviated.  Seeley  has 
well  remarked  that  it  was  "by  the  waters  of  Babylon" 
that  Jewish  nationality  was  transformed  into  Judaism. 
The  hateful  persecutions  which  from  of  old  have  afflicted 
the  Jews  in  so  many  alien  lands,  were  motived  by  the 
obstinate  resistance  of  this  people  to  assimilation.  Their 
resistance  was  rendered  possible  by  the  highly  articu- 
lated system  of  symbolism  and  family  religious  ob- 
servance, which  ensured  the  continuity  of  their  group- 
consciousness,  and  made  the  old  commands  against 
exogamy  and  against  the  worship  of  alien  gods  into 
effectual  motives  in  the  breasts  of  the  scattered  Jewish 
families.  So  long  as  their  intense  awareness  of  their 
separation  from  all  other  peoples,  their  feeling  of  identity 
with  their  fellow  Jews  throughout  the  world,  and  their 
hope  of  restoration  to  their  old  territory  and  to  national 
sovereignty  remained  intact,  it  was  impossible  for  them 
to  become  absorbed  into  the  nations  among  which  they 
lived.  Now  this  sense  of  separateness  was  kept  alive 
by  two  factors  only:  first,  their  religious  system;  and 
secondly,  the  very  persecution  which,  in  resentment 
of  their  divided  loyalty,  sought  to  end  it.  In  so  far  as 
in  modern  countries,  like  England  and  America,  persons 
of  Jewish  descent  are  forgetting  or  repudiating  their 
origin  and  the  loyalties  prompted  by  it,  this  is  visibly 
due  to  change  of  creed,  and  to  their  admission  in  such 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  23^ 

countries  to  full  equality  with  their  non- Jewish  fellow- 
citizens. 

To  sum  up,  then:  Nationality  may  be  destroyed  with- 
out the  loss  of  territorial  unity.  Or  it  can  survive  despite 
this  loss.  When  it  does,  its  survival  is  due  to  the  per- 
sistence of  national  ideals  and  the  resulting  consciousness 
of  unity  of  inheritance  and  goal. 

The  importance  of  a  true  doctrine  of  nationality  and 
of  its  connection  with  religion  is  demonstrated  by  the 
experienced  dangers  incident  to  a  misunderstanding  of 
these  tremendous  forces.  To  contend,  as  I  have  done, 
that  religion  and  nationality  are  in  large  measure  iden- 
tical is  not  in  the  least  to  imply  that  either  religion  or 
nationality  is  in  every  case  a  good  and  admirable  thing. 
This  I  would  request  the  reader  to  bear  clearly  in  mind, 
since  the  unfamiliar  argument  I  am  presenting  will  en- 
counter his  prejudice  if  he  forgets  it,  or  forgets  that  I  am 
aware  of  it.  Either  religion  or  nationality,  or  both,  may 
be  good,  bad,  or  indifferent;  savage  or  civilized;  rational 
or  mythological.  National  patriotism  may  be  consistent 
with  and  conducive  to  true  humanitarianism  and  the  es- 
tablishment of  universal  peace  and  fraternity.  It  may, 
on  the  other  hand,  be  a  menace  to  these  ideals.  If  it  is 
exclusive,  and  connotes  hatred  of  other  nations,  or  if  it 
aims  at  the  domination  of  the  world,  politically  or  spirit- 
ually, by  a  single  people,  it  becomes  the  most  mischievous 
of  all  forms  of  insanity.  Religion,  too,  is  not  a  special 
kind  of  consciousness,  but  a  special  mode  or  direction  of 
the  same  consciousness  which  functions  in  other  spheres 
of  human  interest.  If  it  fosters  an  exclusive  nationalism, 
or  if  it  is  so  absorbed  in  extra-mundane  hopes  as  to  induce 
neglect  of  the  spiritual  opportunities  of  the  present  life, 
it  also  becomes  a  menace  to  the  interests  of  humanity. 


234  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

The  necessity  of  a  right  understanding  of  these  great 
psychic  forces  has  been  vividly  brought  home  to  us  by 
the  unprecedented  disaster  of  the  European  War.  Mod- 
ern sentiment  had  for  years  been  growing  oblivious  to 
the  indestructible  force  of  national  loyalty,  and  had 
mistakenly  supposed  that  the  development  of  the  means 
of  world-wide  intercommunication  had  inaugurated  an 
era  of  cosmopolitanism.  This  was  a  dangerous  blunder. 
The  machinery  which  made  possible  the  fulfilment  of 
national  ambitions  was  supposed  to  have  rendered  im- 
possible the  perpetuation  of  the  spirit  which  created  it. 
The  interpretation,  also,  of  human  life  in  terms  of  mo- 
tives controlled  exclusively  by  economic  interest  had  pro- 
duced the  gigantic  illusion  that  national  patriotism  was 
weakened  and  on  the  way  to  becoming  extinct. 

Now  there  are  many  to-day  who  in  their  humanitarian- 
ism  loathe  the  idea  of  patriotism  or  nationalism,  just  as 
there  are  many  who  in  their  detestation  of  supernatural- 
ism  turn  their  backs  upon  every  actual  and  possible 
form  of  religion.  To  such  thinkers  I  would  merely  urge 
for  the  moment  that  it  is  of  no  use  to  ignore  a  fact  simply 
because  one  does  not  like  it.  The  most  stupendous  fact 
of  history,  and  especially  of  the  history  that  is  to-day 
in  the  making,  is  the  indestructible  and  gigantic  force 
of  national  solidarity  and  loyalty,  even  in  those  who  had 
mistakenly  imagined  themselves  to  have  outgrown  it. 

What,  for  example,  is  the  explanation  of  the  alleged 
collapse  of  Socialism  at  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war? 
It  was  not  a  collapse  of  Socialism  at  all.  On  the  contrary, 
in  each  of  the  contending  nations  there  has  been  an 
immense  advance  in  the  practical  application  of  social- 
istic principles, — though,  to  be  sure,  in  undemocratic 
fashion,  under  stress  of  necessity  rather  than  from  convic- 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  235 

tion  of  their  ethical  soundness.  What  broke  down  when 
this  war  began  was  the  mythological  metaphysic  which 
many  Socialists,  especially  those  of  the  school  of  Marx, 
had  foolishly  supposed  to  be  an  integral  part  of  their 
system.  For  forty  years  they  had  been  insisting,  in  the 
teeth  of  the  facts,  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  unity 
of  interest  between  all  the  classes  that  compose  a  nation. 
They  had  declared  that  the  working-man  in  Germany 
has  more  in  common  with  the  working-man  in  Russia 
or  France  than  with  the  aristocracy  or  plutocracy  of  his 
own  country.  They  had  asserted  that  economic  interest 
is  the  sole  determinant  of  the  human  will,  and  conse- 
quently that  solidarity  must  follow  the  pressure  of  this 
motive  throughout  the  world,  irrespective  of  physical 
and  psychic  frontiers.  Accordingly,  they  had  supposed 
that  the  outbreak  of  an  international  war  would  herald 
the  combination  of  the  workers  of  different  countries  in 
solid  opposition  to  the  schemes  of  the  capitalistic  groups 
by  whom  (as  they  maintained)  the  affairs  of  the  nations 
are  controlled. 

Now  what  happened  when  the  war  began  was  that 
these  theorists  experienced  in  themselves  the  irresistible 
working  of  the  very  forces  of  which  they  had  denied  the 
existence.  They  became  aware  for  the  first  time  that 
the  German  or  French  or  English  working-man  actually 
has  many  more  interests  in  common  with  all  the  classes 
of  his  own  nation  than  with  his  own  class  in  other  nations. 
Gustave  Herve  was  one  of  the  first  to  volunteer  in  France, 
and  the  German  Socialists  have  been  among  the  bravest 
fighters  in  their  country's  cause.  To  those  who  had  for 
years  been  preaching  this  truth,  the  instantaneous  uni- 
fication of  the  nations  in  the  face  of  the  peril  of  in- 
vasion was  neither  shocking  nor  surprising.  To  those, 


236  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

on  the  other  hand,  who  with  short-sighted  optimism  had 
declared  that  it  could  not  happen,  it  must  needs  have 
been  a  heart-breaking  disappointment. 

Now  there  is  no  country  in  which  the  importance  of  a 
correct  understanding  of  these  great  sociological  forces 
is  so  vital  and  urgent  as  in  America.  We  are  here  at- 
tempting, under  wholly  unprecedented  conditions,  to 
build  up  a  unified  nation  out  of  the  most  diverse  and 
heterogeneous  elements.  Unless  we  rightly  understand 
the  factors  in  our  own  nature  which  we  must  control  to 
this  end,  the  great  experiment  is  foredoomed  to  failure. 
If  it  fails,  then  the  hope  of  a  peaceful  and  fraternal 
organization  of  mankind  will  perish  with  it,  or  at  least 
will  be  deferred  for  an  incalculable  period.  The  Churches 
have  here  their  greatest  opportunity  and  their  greatest 
responsibility.  They  must  set  themselves  firmly  against 
the  spread-eagle  jingoism  which  would  make  American 
patriotism  identical  with  hatred  of  other  nations,  and 
also  against  the  false  theory  of  anti-patriotic  cosmopol- 
itanism which  has  gained  so  much  ground  in  recent  years. 
It  is  the  function  of  the  Churches  not  only  to  be  the 
standard-bearers  of  the  ideal,  but  also  to  clarify  the 
minds  of  men,  in  regard  to  the  intellectual  principles 
which  should  govern  the  formation  and  revision  of  ideals. 

The  anti-patriotic  theory  of  the  class-war  Socialist 
needs  no  refutation.  It  lies  dead  upon  the  battlefields 
of  Europe.  Every  Marxian  Socialist  in  the  contending 
armies  is  an  irrefutable  witness  to  the  fact  that  life  is 
stronger  than  the  single-track  logic  of  the  "materialist 
conception  of  history."  The  actual  spiritual  unity  of 
nations,  which  in  economic  and  other  minor  interests  may 
be  divided  against  themselves,  is  demonstrated  with 
tragic  convincingness.  The  dream  of  a  unification  of 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  237 

mankind  along  class  lines  and  in  disregard  of  the  spiritual 
frontiers  of  nations  is  dissipated.  For  good  or  for  ill,  we 
now  know  that  that  deep  identity  which  is  expressed  in 
unity  of  language,  and  in  the  consciousness  of  a  common 
past  and  a  common  lot,  is  greater  and  more  radical  than 
any  difference  of  immediate  political  policy  or  economic 
interest.  No  party  will  ever  again  seek  to  build  upon  the 
quicksands  of  the  Marxian  mythology. 

But  this  demonstration  of  the  reality  and  the  in- 
vincible strength  of  the  psychic  force  of  nationalism  must 
not  lead  us  to  abandon  or  to  despair  of  what  was  sound 
in  the  cosmopolitan  ideal.  That  ideal  was  not  so  much 
an  illusion  as  a  misstatement  of  a  vitally  important 
truth,  which  has  too  commonly  been  overlooked  by  the 
advocates  of  nationalism.  That  we  may  see  how  im- 
portant this  truth  is,  we  have  but  to  look  at  the  horrible 
prospect  held  out  by  those  who  consciously  reject  it. 
General  von  Bernhardi  is  the  man  who  has  recently 
gained  the  widest  hearing  for  the  doctrine  of  exclusive 
nationalism.  He  maintains  that  it  is  of  the  nature  of 
treason  for  any  citizen  *  to  entertain  an  ideal  loyalty 
transcending  that  which  he  owes  to  his  own  country. 
Everybody  has  recoiled  in  horror  from  the  brutal  national 
egoism  thus  advocated.  Yet  here  in  America  we  have  no 
less  representative  a  citizen  than  Colonel  Roosevelt 
proclaiming  a  doctrine  which  (whether  he  knows  it  or 
not)  is  in  fact  identical  with  that  of  Bernhardi.  This  is 
the  doctrine  of  "My  country  right  or  wrong" — a  princi- 
ple which  leads  to  a  complete  abdication  of  the  moral 
judgment  of  citizens  in  regard  to  any  act  or  policy  of 
their  country  involving  its  relations  to  the  rest  of  the 

1  At  least  of  Germany:  it  is  not  clear  that  the  doctrine  applies  to  Amer- 
icans, especially  those  of  German  or  Irish  origin! 


238  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

world.  Colonel  Roosevelt  and  many  others  have 
snatched  up  this  ill-considered  and  fatal  catchword  with  a 
view  to  the  unification  of  the  American  people.  We  are  a 
medley  of  new-comers  from  all  the  lands  of  Europe,  and 
the  survival  among  us  of  extra-American  loyalties  in- 
volves the  possibility  of  serious  danger  to  the  unity  of 
our  chosen  country.  Many  of  us  are  looking  back  to  the 
civilization  and  the  artistic  tradition  of  Europe,  instead  of 
forward  to  that  which  is  to  be  in  America.  Mr.  Roose- 
velt is  entirely  right  in  saying  that  we  should  cease  to  ape 
Europe.  He  is  no  less  completely  wrong  in  maintaining 
that  our  American  loyalty  requires  the  abdication  of  our 
freedom  of  thought  and  of  moral  judgment  in  regard  to 
America's  foreign  policy. 

It  is  curious  that  the  most  vociferous  advocates  of  the 
doctrine  of  "My  country  right  or  wrong"  are  at  the 
same  moment  loudest  in  voicing  condemnations  of  Ger- 
many. How  can  they  fail  to  detect  the  inconsistency  of 
their  attitude?  If  the  doctrine  which  they  proclaim  is 
valid  for  America,  it  must  be  no  less  valid  for  any  other 
nation.  Yet  the  criticism  most  often  passed  upon  Ger- 
many is  that  her  people  have  slavishly  acted  upon  this 
principle.  They  have  acquiesced  in  every  militaristic 
development  demanded  by  their  Government.  They 
assented  to  the  invasion  of  Belgium,  precisely  upon 
the  ground  that  the  acts  of  their  Government  are  the 
acts  of  their  country,  and  that  they  are  bound  to  stand 
by  their  country  in  whatever  course  her  rulers  decide 
to  take.  Colonel  Roosevelt's  attitude  in  affirming  this 
doctrine  and  simultaneously  pouring  out  the  vials  of 
his  wrath  against  Germany  is  a  distressing  evidence  of 
his  fundamental  incapacity  for  clear  ethical  judgment. 
He  is  urging  his  compatriots  to  adopt  an  attitude  which 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  239 

cannot  fail  to  lead  to  the  very  results  at  which  he  is  so 
horrified  in  the  Old  World. 

This  narrow,  chauvinistic  and  exclusive  nationalism  is 
as  great  a  menace  to  the  peace  and  progress  of  the  world 
as  the  anti-nationalism  of  the  cosmopolitan  school.  The 
only  way  to  encounter  both  perils  is  to  affirm  the  true 
doctrine  of  nationalism.  The  starting-point  in  all  plans 
for  the  peaceful  federation  of  the  world  must  be  the 
principle  laid  down  many  years  ago  by  Mazzini: 

Nations  are  the  citizens  of  humanity,  as  individuals  are  the 
citizens  of  the  nation.  And  as  every  individual  lives  a  two- 
fold life,  inwa^and  of  relation,  so  do  the  nations.  As  every 
individual  should  strive  to  promote  the  power  and  prosperity 
of  his  nation  through  the  exercise  of  his  special  function,  so 
should  every  nation,  in  performing  its  special  mission,  ac- 
cording to  its  special  capacity,  perform  its  part  in  the  general 
work,  and  promote  the  progressive  advance  and  prosperity 
of  humanity.  Nationality  and  humanity  are  therefore 
equally  sacred.  To  forget  humanity  is  to  suppress  the  aim  of 
our  labours;  to  cancel  the  nation  is  to  suppress  the  instrument 
by  which  to  achieve  the  aim.1 

The  great  Italian  has  here  formulated  the  true  prin- 
ciple of  patriotism.  He  sees  that  there  can  be  no  such 
thing  as  a  melting  down  of  all  mankind  into  one  un- 
differentiated  mass  of  humanity-in-general.  He  sees 
that  the  nation  is  a  permanent  and  indispensable  organ 
for  the  achievement  of  the  ends  of  the  race.  He  also  sees 
that,  because  this  is  true,  patriotism  must  be  expressed 
in  the  form  of  a  universal  ethical  principle.  When  this 
is  done,  we  transcend  the  immoral  and  braggart  doctrine 

1  Mazzini,  "  The  Holy  Alliance  of  the  Peoples"  (1849),  ^  Collected 
Works,  vol.  v,  p.  274. 


240  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

of  "My  country  right  or  wrong,"  by  denning  the  only 
conditions  under  which  our  country  can  be  right,  and 
consequently  can  demand  from  us  a  rational  and  un- 
divided allegiance.  By  the  very  law  that  binds  me  to  my 
own  country,  I  am  equally  bound  to  respect  the  devotion 
of  all  other  men  to  theirs.  Because  I  hold  my  own  nation 
inviolable,  I  must  equally  protest  against  any  policy 
which  would  lead  to  the  violation  of  another  nation. 

The  principle  here  involved  is  the  same  as  that  to 
which  we  were  led  in  our  study  of  the  idea  of  God. 
Spiritual  perfection — of  which  for  us  the  highest  mani- 
festation is  the  perfection  of  humanity — is  the  inte- 
grated harmony  of  the  minds  and  wills  of  all  actual  and 
possible  rational  agents.  Into  this  conception  there 
enter  (as  we  said  in  Chapter  III)  "both  the  completeness 
of  the  series  and  the  uniqueness  of  each  of  its  terms." 
The  reasoning  which  justifies  this  conclusion  applies  to 
families  and  nations  as  well  as  to  the  totality.  The 
sacredness  of  every  nation  consists  in  the  fact  that  it  can 
contribute  to  the  "general  deed  of  man"  some  indis- 
pensable factor  which  no  other  nation  can  bring.  Each 
has  thus  a  unique  mission;  each  is  a  chosen  people.  It  is 
no  sentimentality,  but  a  literal  truth  of  the  highest 
moment,  that  "in  the  gain  or  loss  of  one  race  all  the  rest 
have  equal  claim."  Such  is  the  dynamism  of  our  lives 
that  every  act  produces  consequences  far  beyond  the 
possibility  of  conscious  following.  Every  act  of  a  nation 
ramifies  through  space  and  reverberates  through  time,  to 
the  utmost  verge  of  the  world  and  to  the  remotest  genera- 
tion of  posterity.  The  Greeks  at  Marathon  decided  the 
fate  of  Europe  for  all  time — little  as  they  knew  it.  When 
Spain  equipped  the  expedition  of  Columbus,  she  changed 
the  whole  future  history  of  the  world. 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  241 

Love  of  country,  then,  and  the  duty  of  loyalty  to  one's 
fatherland  or  the  land  of  one's  choice,  is  a  specific  applica- 
tion of  a  principle  which,  being  ethical,  is  necessarily 
universal.  That  principle  demands  a  respect  for  the 
patriotism  of  other  peoples  as  complete  as  the  self- 
respect  that  goes  with  one's  own  patriotism.  What  is 
right  for  me  is  right  for  my  neighbour.  What  it  would  be 
wrong  for  him  to  do  towards  me,  it  must  be  wrong  for  me 
to  do  towards  him.  The  ethics  of  international  policy 
consists  in  the  application  to  foreign  affairs  of  the  same 
moral  principles  that  are  recognized  as  binding  within 
the  limits  of  the  nation.  Until  the  whole  world  reaches  a 
point  where  such  an  act  as  that  of  Germany  towards 
Belgium  would  be  impossible,  it  will  not  have  attained 
even  the  beginnings  of  a  truly  ethical  civilization. 
Mazzini's  doctrine  is  the  foundation-stone  of  the  edifice 
of  humanity. 

Implied  in  these  contentions  is  the  truth  that  the  Moral 
Law  is  one  and  indivisible,  and  is  paramount  over  all 
expediencies  that  conflict  with  it.  Patriotism  is  the 
reverence  that  should  be  felt  for  one's  nation  as  a  special 
custodian  of  this  law,  and  as  an  agent  for  the  actualiza- 
tion of  its  requirements  in  face  of  a  unique  set  of  oppor- 
tunities and  exigencies.  The  patriot  is  he  whose  ultimate 
loyalty  is  given  unconditionally  to  this  law,  and  only 
under  it  to  his  nation.  The  jingo  doctrine  is  not  pa- 
triotism, but  a  debased  counterfeit  which  is  really  the 
opposite  of  what  it  simulates. 

This  placing  of  the  nation  under  humanity,  and  of 
both  under  a  law  that  is  objective,  eternal  and  immutable 
in  principle,  clears  up  for  us  the  confusion  raised  by  the 
parrot-cry  of  "My  country  right  or  wrong."  It  is  your 
country's  mission  which  gives  her  the  right  to  your 


242  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

loyalty;  and  only  in  so  far  as  she  is  seeking  to  fulfil  it 
can  she  have  a  right  to  your  approval  and  co-operation. 
In  case  she  errs  or  sins,  it  is  true  patriotism  to  admonish 
her  of  the  error  or  to  convict  her  of  the  sin.1  But  if  you 
take  the  stand  of  the  jingoes,  you  resign  your  pre- 
rogative as  a  moral  agent.  You  give  your  conscience 
into  the  keeping  of  the  Foreign  Office,  just  as  Catholics 
have  sometimes  given  theirs  into  the  keeping  of  the 
priest.  Incidentally,  too,  you  debar  yourself  from  the 
right  to  blame  any  foreigner  for  the  sins  of  his  country; 
for  if  you  blame  him,  he  has  but  to  retort  that  he  acts 
by  the  same  principle  that  you  profess,  and  you  are  left 
without  resource.  In  condemning  the  deeds  of  a  foreign 
power,  you  appeal  to  a  law  superior  to  and  binding  upon 
all  nations;  and  you  tacitly  pledge  yourself  to  measure 
any  future  act  of  your  own  country  by  the  standard  that 
you  invoke. 

These  considerations  belong  to  the  alphabet  of  ethics. 
The  fact  that  they  are  not  self-evident  and  universally 
accepted  is  a  terrible  commentary  upon  the  failure  of  the 
Churches  to  fulfil  their  trust.  My  plea  is  that  they 
should  now  rise  to  the  full  requirements  of  this  hitherto 
neglected  duty,  by  teaching  that  patriotism  is  the  highest 
application  of  the  universal  moral  law,  and  is  identical 
with  religion.  A  nation's  mission  to  humanity — its 
opportunity  of  rendering  a  unique  but  indispensable 
service  to  the  race — constitutes  the  authentic  revelation 
of  God  to  its  citizens.  When  they  insist  that  its  every 
policy  and  deed  shall  be  directed  towards  the  fulfilment 

1  "Patriotism  is  not  the  belief  that  your  country  is  right:  patriotism 
is  the  passion  to  keep  your  country  in  the  right.  A  country  'in  the 
right '  is  thinking  and  acting  not  more  for  its  own  good  than  for  that  of 
all  humanity." — Booth  Tarkington,  article  "The  American  View,"  in 
Metropolitan,  July,  1915. 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  243 

of  this  its  ideal  destiny,  they  are  truly  patriotic,  how- 
ever violently  the  mob  may  accuse  them  of  disloyalty 
or  treason. 

The  alarm  aroused  in  the  breasts  of  many  Americans 
by  the  reaction  of  the  European  War  upon  our  domestic 
problems  serves  to  draw  attention  both  to  the  special 
task  which  America  has  in  her  keeping  and  to  her  com- 
parative failure  thus  far  to  cope  effectively  with  it.  En- 
couraged by  the  heartfelt  gratitude  expressed  by  immi- 
grants of  exceptional  genius,  we  have  come  to  look  upon 
America  as  being  in  truth  the  promised  land  to  the  op- 
pressed of  the  whole  earth.  It  is  one  of  the  superficial 
Bad  habits  of  all  peoples  to  confound  the  ideals  of  their 
nation  with  its  actual  achievements.  We  mistake  the 
so-called  "glittering  generalities"  upon  which  the  Re- 
public is  founded  for  a  statement  of  things  already  won, 
whereas  they  are  in  truth  only  the  outlines  of  remote 
ideals.  Because  America  aspires  to  be  the  promised 
land,  we  are  apt  to  imagine  that  she  already  is  it. 
Huxley  once  remarked  that  "the  slaying  of  a  beauti- 
ful hypothesis  by  an  ugly  fact"  is  the  daily  tragedy  of 
science.  There  are  many  ugly  facts  on  every  hand  to 
slay  the  optimistic  illusion  of  Americans  as  to  what 
their  country  has  accomplished  towards  actualizing  the 
ideals  which  gave  it  birth. 

Among  them  is  the  truth  which  during  the  last  two 
years  has  been  realized  more  clearly  than  ever  before, — 
that  America  has  not  so  treated  her  immigrant  population 
as  to  win  to  herself  its  complete  and  undivided  loyalty. 
No  doubt  it  is  possible  to  exaggerate  the  extent  of  the 
evil  of  our  disunion;  but  there  is  a  very  substantial  re- 
siduum of  truth,  after  every  allowance  has  been  made 
for  exaggeration.  It  is  not  inconceivable  that  in  the 


244  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

event  of  war  between  America  and  almost  any  nation  in 
Europe,  the  enemy  power  might  have  in  this  country  a 
large  population  openly  or  secretly  loyal  to  it  and  hostile 
to  the  Republic.  Even  in  the  case  of  those  who  have 
sincerely  taken  their  pledge  of  allegiance  to  the  United 
States,  their  loyalty  is  apt  to  be  of  the  nature  of  an  in- 
tellectual conviction,  and,  as  such,  inevitably  weaker  in 
its  influence  upon  the  will  than  the  spontaneous  and 
passionate  sentiment  of  an  inborn  patriotism. 

Now,  the  first  task  for  America  (and  it  is  indeed  a 
gigantic  one)  is  to  deserve  on  her  own  behalf  such  an  un- 
conditional and  unquestioning  allegiance  as  every  other 
great  nation  is  able  to  count  upon  from  its  citizens  in 
any  time  of  stress.  This  will  necessitate,  in  the  first 
place,  the  thinking  out  and  the  adoption  of  a  policy  in 
regard  to  immigration  immeasurably  more  radical  and 
far-reaching  than  any  that  has  yet  been  contemplated. 
It  may  necessitate  the  practical  closing  of  our  doors  to 
immigrants  for  at  least  a  generation.  I  do  not  say  that 
this  will  be  necessary.  My  point  is  that  if  the  competent 
study  of  the  problem  by  disinterested  experts  should 
show  it  to  be  so,  we  must  be  prepared  to  act  upon  their 
finding.  It  certainly  will  be  necessary  to  make  far  more 
rigid  than  hitherto  the  conditions  of  naturalization.  We 
shall  have  to  inaugurate  a  system  of  compulsory  educa- 
tion for  adult  immigrants.  The  path  in  this  direction  is 
already  being  blazed  in  Chicago,  where  a  body  of  un- 
official citizens  have  begun  to  organize  in  the  public 
schools  classes  for  the  instruction  of  applicants  for 
citizenship.  The  effort  is  meeting  with  gratifying  ac- 
ceptance, both  by  the  educational  authorities  and  by  the 
immigrants,  who  in  large  numbers  are  availing  them- 
selves of  the  privilege  thus  accorded.  But  it  is  merely  a 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  245 

pioneer  experiment,  pointing  in  the  direction  of  a  far  more 
thorough  handling  of  the  problem  on  a  national  scale. 

The  tragic  irony  of  the  situation,  however,  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  education  we  must  give  to  the  immigrant 
will  consist  in  the  inculcation  of  ideals  of  Americanism 
which  at  present  are  flagrantly  belied  by  many  experi- 
ences of  his  daily  life.  We  must  teach  him,  as  we  now 
teach  his  children  and  our  own,  that  America  stands  for 
human  equality;  and  on  every  hand  he  will  see  the  grow- 
ing power  of  class  distinctions,  quite  as  abrupt  as  those 
of  the  European  nations,  and  often  more  brutal.  We 
shall  teach  him  that  America  stands  for  equality  of 
opportunity  and  for  the  granting  of  free  scope  to  per- 
sonal merit.  He  will  go  from  the  school,  and  see  all 
around  him  evidences  of  the  power  of  an  anonymous 
plutocracy,  which,  by  a  hundred  devices,  has  gained  the 
whip  hand  over  State  and  municipal  governments,  and 
organized  its  commercial  monopolies  so  effectively  that 
no  inventor  of  an  improved  process  who  might  threaten 
them  with  competition  can  procure  capital  for  the  flota- 
tion of  his  enterprise.1  He  knows  by  hard  experience  that 
in  this  country  there  is  no  less  brutality  in  the  treatment 
of  labourers  by  their  bosses  and  gangsters  than  in  the 
Old  World.  He  has  encountered  many  new  restrictions 
upon  his  liberty,  such  as  he  never  met  with  in  Europe. 
In  the  inhumanly  sordid  slums  of  our  cities,  he  finds  the 
"pursuit  of  happiness"  tenfold  more  a  mockery  and  a 
wild-goose  chase  than  he  had  ever  dreamed  it  could  be. 
These  are  some  of  the  reasons  why,  instead  of  forgetting 

1  The  reader  will  scarcely  need  to  be  reminded  of  the  vivid  picture  of 
this  state  of  things  drawn  by  President  Wilson  in  his  book  on  The  New 
Freedom.  I  would  commend  also  the  excellent  treatise  on  Unpopular 
Government  in  the  United  States,  by  Prof.  Albert  M.  Kales,  of  North- 
Western  University.  (Chicago  Univ.  Press:  1914.) 


246  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

his  past,  he  frequently  institutes  unfavourable  com- 
parisons between  it  and  his  present  conditions.  Until 
America  actually  redeems  the  tremendous  promises  made 
to  its  recruits  from  Europe,  it  will  be  vain  to  harangue 
them  about  the  duty  of  according  to  their  adopted  coun- 
try a  single  and  whole-souled  allegiance. 

Nor  must  we  refuse  to  open  our  eyes  to  the  appalling 
anomaly  still  presented  by  the  political,  economic  and 
social  status  of  the  negro  race  among  us.  Europe  is  still 
smiling  sardonically  at  the  memory  of  that  assemblage 
of  freedom-loving  slave-owners  who  drew  up  the  dec- 
laration that  all  men  are  born  equal  and  have  an  in- 
defeasible right  to  life  and  liberty.  Since  the  days  of 
the  fathers,  however,  the  Republic,  at  the  cost  of  a  con- 
vulsion which  threatened  its  life,  has  succeeded  in  purg- 
ing itself  of  the  cancer  of  chattel  slavery.  She  did  this 
very  shortly  after  the  backward  and  benighted  despot- 
ism of  Russia  had  abolished  her  immemorial  system  of 
serfdom.  To-day  the  emancipated  serfs  of  Russia  are 
for  the  most  part  landowners,  cultivating  each  his  own 
little  holding  and  living  by  its  produce.  America  pledged 
her  manumitted  negroes  the  rights  of  free  citizens, — a 
pledge  which  in  the  South  has  never  been  redeemed,  and 
in  the  North  has  only  been  formally  kept.  Everybody 
knows  by  what  evasions  of  the  plighted  faith  of  the  Re- 
public the  negroes  have  been  defrauded  of  political  rights 
and  denied  equality  of  educational  opportunity  and  of 
professional  and  economic  status  with  their  white  fellow- 
citizens.  The  negro  problem  of  to-day  in  this  country, 
like  the  Jewish  problem  in  Russia,  is  one  that  has  been 
created  by  the  nation's  refusal  to  them  of  the  rights  of 
citizens  and  of  the  homage  due  to  their  moral  dignity  as 
human  beings.  The  difference,  however,  between  this 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  247 

country  and  Russia  is  that  Russia's  tyranny  has  been 
unblushing  and  unconcealed,  whereas  our  own  has  been 
rendered  more  odious  by  the  hypocrisy  of  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  solemnly  guaranteeing 
to  the  victims  of  past  tyranny  a  benefit  which  in  practice 
has  been  withheld  from  them.  If  the  ideal  unity  which 
all  American  patriots  desire  is  to  be  actualized,  we  must 
begin  by  purging  our  national  system  of  these  ugly  and 
poisonous  defects. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  problem  is  insoluble;  that  the 
negro  is  inferior,  and  so  must  be  debarred  from  the  free 
self-realization  accorded  to  the  white  man.  This  is  un- 
proved and  unprovable;  but  my  contention  is  that,  if 
the  white  race  of  America  really  believes  this,  it  ought 
frankly  and  honestly  to  act  upon  the  belief.  Let  us  add 
some  footnotes  to  the  Constitution.  Let  us  rescind  the 
Fifteenth  Amendment  and  Section  I  of  the  Fourteenth. 
Let  us,  for  heaven's  sake,  not  perpetuate  the  falsehood 
that  we  are  according  to  these  people  a  freedom  and 
equality  which  we  have  no  intention  of  permitting  them 
to  enjoy.  Let  us  not  persist  in  first  denying  them  educa- 
tional opportunity,  and  then  pointing  to  their  ignorance 
as  a  disqualification  for  the  status  of  citizens.  Let  us  not 
deliberately  close  the  avenues  of  professional  training 
and  advancement  to  them,  and  then  allege  their  economic 
backwardness  as  a  proof  of  their  inherent  inferiority. 
Since  we  are  in  practice  repudiating  the  ideals  embodied 
in  our  organic  laws,  let  us  honestly  say  that  we  cannot 
live  up  to  these  ideals.  Let  us  make  clear  what  our 
real  belief  is:  that  all  men  are  born  equal,  except  those 
who  are  not;  and  that  all  have  a  right  to  the  pursuit  of 
happiness,  so  long  as  their  pursuit  of  it  does  not  cross 
the  convenience  of  the  dominant  race  or  class. 


248  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

If  it  be  asked  what  connection  all  this  has  with  the 
problem  of  religion,  I  would  reply,  in  the  first  place,  that 
it  was  a  system  of  law  and  custom,  by  which  all  the 
exigencies  of  social  life  and  class  struggle  were  regulated, 
that  constituted  the  substance  of  the  religion  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Are  the  Constitutions  of  this  nation  and  its 
States  less  sacred  to  us  than  the  laws  of  Moses?  Those 
laws  emanated  from  the  soul  of  the  Jewish  people,  which 
they  very  appropriately  called  their  God.  The  divinity 
of  the  system  consisted  in  the  fact  that  it  embodied  the 
highest  ideals  they  were  capable  of  conceiving.  In  this 
sense,  and  for  these  reasons,  the  legislation  of  the  Old 
Testament  really  did  constitute  a  divine  revelation. 
We  ought  to  regard  our  own  organic  laws  as  possessing 
for  us  the  same  kind  of  sanctity  as  the  Mosaic  legislation 
had  for  the  Jews.  They  are  our  divine  revelation.  If 
they  are  defective,  we  have  among  us  the  revealing 
God — the  reason  and  conscience  by  which  to  amend 
them.  If  our  practice  falls  below  the  level  of  their 
demands,  we  are  to  that  extent  apostate  from  the  faith 
we  have  professed,  and  disloyal  to  the  organizing  genius 
of  our  nation,  which  is  for  us  the  incarnation  of  God. 

The  Churches  should  systematically  inculcate  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  this  exalted  and  exalting  view  of  the 
nation  and  its  ideals.  In  our  religion,  American  history 
should  take  a  place  equal  to  that  which  Jewish  history 
held  in  the  Hebrew  religion,  though  without  imitating 
the  Jewish  exclusiveness.  In  addition  to  the  hymns 
of  the  ancient  Jews,  which  confess  their  sins  and  cele- 
brate their  deliverances,  we  should  chant  the  psalms  of 
our  own  poets  and  prophets,  in  confession  of  the  sins  of 
America,  and  in  thanksgiving  for  her  historic  deliverances 
and  development.  We  are  rendered  blind  to  the  sig- 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  249 

nificance  of  our  own  position  and  problems,  and  to  the 
dignity  and  responsibility  of  our  own  function  as  a 
contributor  to  the  total  achievement  of  humanity,  by  the 
fact  that  we  are  living  on  a  borrowed  religion,  which 
consists  mainly  of  expressions  of  another  people's  pa- 
triotism. What  have  our  Churches  to  do  with  the  vic- 
tories of  the  Jews  over  their  neighbours,  and  with  the 
exaltation  of  Jerusalem  and  its  temple?  Were  not  the 
American  Revolution  and  the  Civil  War  at  least  as 
important — to  put  it  mildly — for  us  and  for  the  human 
race  at  large,  as  the  deliverance  of  the  Jews  from  Egypt 
and  from  Babylon?  Has  there  not  been  in  our  common 
life  as  intimate  an  experience  of  the  ultimate  spiritual 
reality  of  the  world  as  ever  came  to  Isaiah,  and  have  we 
not  had  poets  and  prophets  equal  in  power  of  vision  and 
speech  to  those  of  the  old  Hebrews?  Why  then  should 
not  the  Churches  give  to  American  history,  literature 
and  poetry  at  least  an  equal  place  with  that  which  they 
now  suffer  to  be  monopolized  by  those  of  the  Jews? 

Never  shall  we  see  our  own  opportunities  and  respon- 
sibilities in  the  light  of  their  true  dignity  until  we  act 
confidently  upon  the  conviction  that  our  experience  of 
the  divine  is  identical  with  that  of  the  ancients.  The 
secret  of  the  strength  of  the  Jewish  religious  system  lay 
in  the  fact  that  its  essential  elements  were  unborrowed. 
This  gave  it  such  strength  and  vigour  that  the  whole 
Western  world  has  ever  since  been  paralyzed  by  the 
thought  that  the  Bible  alone  contained  a  divine  revela- 
tion. We  profess  to  have  advanced  in  the  direction  of 
democratic  and  humanistic  conceptions,  but  we  are 
still  afraid  to  give  effect  to  our  convictions.  We  dare 
not  act  upon  the  principle  that  Washington  and  Lincoln 
stand  in  exactly  the  same  category  as  Moses  and  David. 


250  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

The  result  is  that  our  own  history  and  literature  seem  to 
us  secular  and  commonplace  as  compared  with  those  of 
this  petty  ancient  people, — who,  however,  earned  the 
right  to  their  immortality  by  reason  of  their  unwavering 
faith  in  their  spiritual  mission  to  mankind.  Until  we  are 
willing  to  accord  to  our  nation  and  its  mission  the  same 
exalted  position  of  identity  with  God  and  religion  which 
the  Jews  gave  to  theirs,  we  cannot  rise  to  the  demands 
of  our  high  calling,  or  achieve  any  fraction  of  the  spiritual 
grandeur  which  is  possible  for  us. 

The  problem  of  America's  national  unification,  and  of 
the  hindrances  that  delay  it,  is  momentous  not  only  for 
America  but  equally  for  the  rest  of  the  world.  The 
special  mission  which  constitutes  what  may  well  be 
called  the  divine  task  of  this  country  is  to  supply,  by  the 
solution  of  its  own  problems,  an  example  of  the  way  in 
which  the  unification  of  the  rest  of  the  world  may  be 
effected.  If  we  can  demonstrate  that  all  the  races  of  the 
earth  can  dwell  together  as  one  people,  in  perfect  amity 
and  freedom  and  in  a  unity  of  civilization  enriched  by 
the  contribution  of  each  constituent  element,  we  shall 
have  shown  how  the  feuds  and  the  estranging  hatreds  of 
the  European  peoples  can  be  purged  away.  Our  national 
ideals  are  sound  and  right;  it  is  our  practical  violation  of 
them  that  is  wrong.  The  only  ultimate  basis  for  the 
peaceful  federation  of  the  world  is  that  of  republican 
equality.  Democracy  is  the  only  extant  form  of  govern- 
ment which  can  give  scope  to  the  finest  spiritual  possi- 
bilities of  every  human  being.  If,  on  this  Continent, 
we  can  have  forty-eight  States  in  one  nation,  each  pre- 
serving its  internal  autonomy,  but  without  so  much  as 
the  possibility  of  war,  why  should  not  the  same  state  of 
things  be  duplicated  in  Europe?  They  talk  there  of 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY 


251 


"insoluble  problems/'  of  clashes  of  racial  and  economic 
interest  that  can  only  be  settled  through  bloodshed.  The 
answer  is  that  we,  with  huge  numbers  of  all  the  European 
races  in  our  population,  have  created  a  machinery  by 
which  every  possible  conflict  of  aspiration  and  interest 
can  be  harmonized,  and  by  which  the  disastrous  possibil- 
ity of  war  is  eliminated.  There  is  in  the  nature  of  things 
no  more  reason  for  war  between  France  and  Germany 
than  for  war  between  Ohio  and  Indiana.  The  same 
federal  principle  which  has  made  war  impossible  as 
between  Ohio  and  Indiana,  while  securing  to  them  all  and 
more  than  all  the  liberty  enjoyed  by  France  and  Ger- 
many, might  bring  about  permanent  and  indestructible 
peace  in  Europe.  It  is,  indeed,  the  principle  upon  which 
Europe  will  ultimately  be  driven  to  organize  its  life. 
This,  then,  is  the  high  mission  of  the  American  Com- 
monwealth,— to  demonstrate  that  what  Europeans  think 
impossible  can  be  done,  and  thereby  to  "give  light  to 
them  that  sit  in  darkness  and  in  the  shadow  of  death, 
and  to  guide  their  feet  into  the  way  of  peace." 

There  are  two  views  held  by  thinkers  as  to  the  develop- 
ment of  American  civilization,  which  are  mutually  ex- 
clusive, and  both  of  which  seem  to  me  false.  One  is  the 
theory  summed  up  in  Mr.  ZangwilTs  happy  phrase, 
"the  melting-pot."  The  other  is  the  doctrine  that  each 
national  group  represented  in  the  population  of  the 
United  States  should  be  culturally  segregated,  in  order 
that  it  may  preserve  the  standards  and  traditions  of  the 
civilization  in  which  it  originated.  These  two  views  are 
derived,  the  one  from  the  theory  of  cosmopolitanism,  the 
other  from  the  doctrine  of  exclusive  nationalism;  both  of 
which,  as  I  have  sought  to  show,  are  morally  and  prac- 


252  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

tically  impossible.  The  rejection  of  these  two  views 
will  lead  us  to  a  third,  which  I  shall  suggest  is  true  and 
sound. 

(i)  The  notion  of  the  "melting-pot"  implies  that  it  is 
possible  to  cut  off  our  immigrants  from  their  past,  and 
to  reduce  them  to  a  homogeneous  and  undifferentiated 
mass  of  humanity-in-general,  from  which  they  may 
afterwards  be  worked  up  into  conformity  with  a  fixed 
American  type.  It  is  as  impossible,  however,  to  do  this 
with  the  souls  of  men  as  with  their  bodies.  Humanity- 
in-general  is  simply  an  abstraction.  There  are  no  "hu- 
man beings"  in  this  sense.  As  was  said  at  the  beginning 
of  this  chapter,  every  man  and  woman  is  a  synthesis  of 
the  common  elements  of  humanity,  which  has  been 
qualified  and  characterized  by  the  manifold  influences  of 
a  special  psychological  atmosphere.  We  never  meet  a 
man  or  woman  who  is  merely  a  man  or  woman.  We 
meet  only  Chinamen,  Englishmen,  Frenchmen,  Russians, 
Germans.  On  the  other  hand,  that  American  type,  into 
the  likeness  of  which  this  theory  requires  us  to  transfigure 
our  immigrants,  is  only  in  the  making;  it  is  not  yet  com- 
pletely made.  Its  development,  moreover,  is  by  way  of  a 
series  of  modifications,  due  in  large  part  to  its  contact 
with  the  already  highly  differentiated  new-comers  from 
the  Old  World.  It  is  a  violation  of  all  that  we  understand 
by  evolution  to  suppose  that  this  unfinished  American 
can  assimilate  into  his  own  likeness  all  who  come  to  our 
shores,  without  being  himself  modified  in  the  process. 
Neither  the  New  England  Puritan,  nor  the  Southern 
Cavalier,  nor  yet  the  hardy  pioneer  of  the  West  (to 
specify  three  of  the  class-types  which  we  associate  with 
the  idea  of  the  American)  is  a  fixed  and  final  product, 
constituting  a  matrix  upon  which  new  arrivals  can  be 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  253 

moulded  without  its  being  itself  affected.  The  American 
type,  in  so  far  as  it  is  developed,  represents  the  effects  of 
adjustment  to  an  environment  (physical  and  psychical) 
which  is  itself  changed  to  some  extent  by  every  immigrant 
who  enters  it.  We  must  face  the  fact  that  this  American 
type  will  undergo  further  modification,  if  immigration  is 
suffered  to  continue.  No  doubt  the  immigrant  will  be 
markedly  changed:  but  the  absorbing  complex  will  be 
altered  by  him,  as  well  as  he  by  it. 

(2)  The  melting-pot  ideal  is  thus  impracticable.  It  is, 
indeed,  nothing  but  a  hasty  catchword,  snatched  up  to 
save  the  labour  of  serious  thinking.  We  turn,  therefore, 
to  the  alternative  embraced  by  those  who  favour  the 
perpetuation  of  foreign  groups  as  such,  each  with  a 
set  of  ideals,  traditions,  and  social  and  cultural  aspi- 
rations, differing  from  those  of  every  other  group,  and 
also  from  those  which  have  determined  the  historic 
development  of  America.  According  to  this  view,  the 
Republic  can  never  become  a  true  inward  and  spiritual 
unity.  It  must  remain  a  bundle  of  inwardly  united  but 
mutually  repellent  groups,  loosely  bound  together  by  a 
tie  of  common  interest  totally  inferior  in  strength  and 
quality  to  the  ideal  loyalty  which  fuses  each  constituent 
to  its  past. 

Setting  aside  the  question  whether  this  is  permanently 
possible,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  from  the  national 
point  of  view  it  would  be  intolerable.  No  commonwealth 
can  endure  the  thought  of  any  group  of  its  citizens 
cherishing  another  national  loyalty,  which  rivals  or 
transcends  that  which  they  accord  to  the  country  and 
the  Government  with  which  they  have  cast  in  their  lot. 
No  other  nation  would  dream  of  tolerating  such  a  state 
of  things.  The  very  idea  of  England  or  Germany  suffer- 


254  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

ing  a  large  mass  of  its  citizens  to  call  themselves  Franco- 
Germans  or  Russo-English  is  inconceivable;  and  we  can 
all  readily  see  why.  The  reason  is  sociologically  identical 
with  that  which  led  the  Jewish  lawgivers  to  deify  the  soul 
of  their  nation,  and  to  represent  it  as  saying,  "Thou  shalt 
have  none  other  gods  before  me."  By  the  accidents  of 
our  historic  and  geographical  situation,  the  indispensable 
necessity  of  this  inward  unity  of  ideal  has  hitherto  been 
obscured  to  us.  But  the  hour  is  coming,  and  now  is, 
when  we  can  no  longer  hide  it  from  ourselves  save  at 
our  peril.  Whatever  secondary  loyalties  and  subsidiary 
patriotisms  may  for  another  generation  or  two  survive 
among  us,  we  have  now  reached  the  time  when  the  "gold 
and  purple"  of  every  American's  heart  must  be  given 
unequivocally  and  unconditionally  to  this  Republic. 
Our  recent  exigencies  have  brought  us  abruptly  to  the 
stark  Entweder-oder  which  is  rightly  insisted  upon  in  every 
nation  except  our  own.  The  very  life  of  the  Republic 
depends  upon  each  citizen's  deciding  whether  he  is  an 
American  or  something  else.  If  it  be  said  that  the  choice 
is  a  hard  one,  the  answer  is  that  it  has  been  voluntarily 
embraced  by  those  who  now  resent  having  it  forced  upon 
them.  The  choice  of  nationality  is  one  of  the  ineludible 
finalities  of  life.  The  man  who  hesitates  to  declare  him- 
self betrays  the  fact  that  he  has  in  truth  already  de- 
cided,— and  decided  against  America. 

He  who  rejects  both  the  alternative  theories  sketched 
in  the  last  few  pages,  may  reasonably  be  asked  to  out- 
line his  own  solution  of  the  problem;  and  this  I  shall  now 
very  briefly  attempt  to  do. 

(3)  The  advance  of  civilization  takes  place  by  way  of 
contact  and  cross-fertilization.  Isolation  is  as  bad  for  a 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY 


255 


people  as  for  an  individual.  The  self-made  nation,  like 
the  self-made  man,  may  adore  its  creator,  but  humanity 
at  large  seldom  has  reason  to  approve  that  creator's 
wisdom  or  taste.  On  the  other  hand,  there  have  been 
many  instances  of  advance  per  saltum  when  two  partially 
developed  types  of  civilization  have  been  brought  into 
relations  of  contact  and  interaction.  When  this  happens, 
it  is  precisely  the  points  of  difference  between  the  two 
types  of  culture  which  produce  the  reciprocal  enrichment. 
That  which  is  already  common  to  both  may  blend,  but 
it  does  not  propagate. 

The  high  promise  of  American  life  consists  in  the  fact 
that  it  has  within  its  control  the  possibility  of  a  fructify- 
ing contact  between  an  unprecedentedly  large  number  of 
types  of  civilization,  juxtaposed  in  a  close  and  permanent 
intimacy  such  as  never  has  been  seen  elsewhere.  What 
may  be  the  final  result  of  this  unexampled  opportunity 
is  unpredictable,  because  it  is  contingent  upon  the  opera- 
tion of  factors  incalculable  in  number  and  complexity. 
We  know  beforehand,  however,  that  the  efflorescence 
must  needs  be  of  the  highest  aesthetic  and  spiritual  ex- 
cellence, if  only  the  situation  which  constitutes  its  po- 
tentiality be  wisely  handled.  We  must  arrange  that  the 
process  of  contact  between  the  different  types  of  civiliza- 
tion shall  be  deliberately  controlled  and  guided.  It  must 
not  be  fortuitous,  as  in  the  past.  It  must  be  an  affair, 
so  to  speak,  of  spiritual  eugenics,  in  which,  although  the 
outcome  is  incapable  of  exact  quantitative  prediction,  we 
shall  have  beforehand  an  assurance  that  it  will  be  quali- 
tatively desirable. 

Such  an  ideal  demands  not  the  segregation  of  every 
type  of  civilization  which  is  imported,  but  the  careful 
study  of  the  elements  of  all  of  them,  as  possible  con- 


256  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

tributions  to  that  new  and  richer  type  of  civilization 
which  is  to  be  evolved  in  America.  The  legitimate  work 
of  our  many  nationalistic  societies  is  simply  this  forward- 
looking  elaboration  of  their  inheritance.  These  societies 
have  no  business  to  think  of  themselves  as  agencies  for 
preserving  the  cultural  achievements  of  the  lands  from 
which  their  members  came,  and  the  loyalty  to  those  lands 
which  such  achievements  inspire.  Their  business  is  to  dis- 
cover the  elements  of  their  racial  inheritance  which,  if 
transplanted  into  American  soil,  would  be  genuine  con- 
tributions to  American  civilization,  compatible  with 
America's  history  and  ideals,  and  valuable  for  their 
future  development.  If,  for  example,  there  is  in  any 
American  city  a  Swedish  or  British  society  composed  of 
American  citizens,  that  society  must  not  exist  and  work 
for  the  sake  of  Sweden  or  Britain.  It  would  be  treason 
to  the  Republic  for  it  to  do  so.  It  has,  however,  a  per- 
fectly legitimate  place  and  function  if  it  exists  and  works 
for  the  sake  of  the  United  States.  Let  it  by  all  means 
keep  alive  what  is  good  in  its  inheritance;  but  let  it  re- 
member always  that  the  things  so  preserved  are  offer- 
ings on  the  altar  of  the  God  of  America. 

The  national  application  of  this  principle  would  mean, 
in  the  first  place,  that  we  must  cease  to  subject  our  im- 
migrants to  conditions  of  urban  life  which  make  it  im- 
possible for  them  to  preserve  the  traditions  and  the  arts 
which  they  bring  with  them.  In  the  second  place,  it  will 
necessitate  a  new  course  of  study,  by  which  all  Americans 
shall  come  to  know,  with  some  degree  of  intimacy,  the 
history,  traditions  and  culture  of  all  the  groups  which  are 
being  incorporated  into  the  body  politic.  This  study 
should  not  be  antiquarian  and  retrospective;  it  should  be 
utilitarian  and  prospective.  It  demands  on  all  sides  an 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY  257 

attitude  of  modesty,  a  spirit  of  receptiveness,  and  a 
whole-souled  devotion  to  the  common  good  of  the  nation 
which  is  here  being  created. 

When  we  go  to  Europe,  we  feel  the  power  and  the  lure 
of  the  past.  It  is  our  habit  to  express  a  certain  good- 
humoured  scorn  for  the  European,  on  account  of  his 
submissiveness  to  history  and  precedent.  We  need, 
however,  so  to  train  our  imagination  that  we  shall  come 
to  feel  in  this  country  the  claim  of  the  future,  as  po- 
tently as  the  urge  of  the  past  is  felt  elsewhere.  We  have 
the  possibility  of  a  civilization  which  shall  be  to  that 
of  Greece  and  the  Italian  Republics  what  the  scientific 
power  of  the  modern  world  is  to  that  of  antiquity.  But 
whether  this  possibility  shall  be  realized  or  not  is  con- 
tingent upon  our  intelligent  handling  of  our  opportu- 
nities. There  is  no  inevitability  about  it.  There  is  no 
fate,  no  self-executing  law  of  evolution,  which  will  bring 
it  about  independently  of  our  conscious  will.  If  we 
are  capable  of  taking  the  long  view  and  co-ordinating  the 
activities  of  our  life  to  the  glorious  but  far-distant  goal, 
it  will  be  attained.  If  we  are  not,  the  opportunity  which 
now  is  ours  will  be  dissipated.  We  shall  sink  into  a 
slavery  to  our  machinery  yet  worse  than  that  which  we 
endure  to-day,  and  America  will  become  the  most  sordid 
and  provincial  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

The  spiritual  leadership  necessary  for  such  an  enter- 
prise constitutes  the  opportunity  of  the  schools,  the  uni- 
versities and  the  Churches.  In  every  community  there 
should  be  international  groups,  bound  by  a  conscious 
sense  and  an  explicit  declaration  of  loyalty  to  America, 
and  bringing  together,  for  the  sake  of  America,  the 
riches  of  their  national  patrimonies.  The  questions  for 
each  constituent  of  such  groups  are  these:  What  is  there 


258  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

in  the  culture  I  have  inherited  which  could  with  advan- 
tage to  America  be  transplanted  here?  What  of  my  best 
can  I  offer  to  the  growing  civilization  of  the  land  to  which 
I  have  sworn  allegiance?  What  unique  thing  has  my  old 
country  produced  which  will  serve  for  the  enrichment 
of  mankind  in  general,  and  specifically  of  my  new  coun- 
try? 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  vast  a  programme  of  profitable 
work  is  thus  laid  open  to  the  national  and  international 
groups  that  already  exist  in  this  country,  and  to  others 
which  could  be  founded  to  carry  it  out.  In  its  developed 
form,  the  plan  would  entail  courses  of  lectures  and  the 
preparation  of  text-books  for  use  in  schools  and  colleges. 
The  study  of  the  subject  in  our  educational  institutions 
might  be  undertaken  either  as  a  new  item  in  the  curri- 
culum, or  by  a  remodelling  of  the  courses  in  history  and 
literature.  Every  preacher  could  find  in  it  inexhaustible 
material  for  his  sermons.  It  would  provide  a  legitimate 
channel  for  those  secondary  loyalties  and  subsidiary 
patriotisms  of  which  I  have  spoken.  It  would  change 
these  from  being,  what  they  too  often  are  to-day,  a 
menace  to  the  unity  and  progress  of  America,  into 
the  most  potent  means  for  the  attainment  of  these 
ends. 

No  less  a  motive,  however,  than  the  religious  concep- 
tion of  our  nation's  destiny  can  be  adequate  to  the 
fulfilment  of  its  spiritual  promise.  The  names  of  Athens 
and  Jerusalem  are,  in  Emerson's  phrase,  "ploughed  into 
the  history  of  the  world,"  because  their  citizens  conse- 
crated themselves  to  Athens  and  Jerusalem  as  to  their 
gods.  Sir  John  Seeley  has  well  remarked  that  it  would 
sound  incongruous  for  us  to  give  in  our  public  worship 
the  same  place  to  our  own  nations  and  cities  as  the  Jews 


RELIGION  AND  NATIONALITY 


259 


gave  to  theirs.1  It  would  indeed  seem  like  a  bad  joke 
for  me  to  suggest  to  my  own  fellow-citizens  that  in  their 
churches  they  should  sing,  "Oh,  pray  for  the  peace  of 
Chicago.  They  shall  prosper  that  love  thee  .  .  .  God 
is  in  the  midst  of  her;  she  shall  not  be  moved."  Yet 
until  its  citizens  do  thus  think  and  feel  towards  Chicago, 
Chicago  cannot  begin  to  be  worthy  of  such  veneration. 
Until  America  and  her  destiny  mean  to  us  what  the 
laws  of  Athens  meant  to  Socrates,  and  what  the  mission 
of  Israel  meant  to  the  Hebrew  prophets,  we  cannot  hope 
either  for  a  truly  exalted  patriotism  or  for  a  great  out- 
burst of  national  genius  in  art;  since  only  this  idealizing 
enthusiasm  can  possibly  quicken  such  an  outburst. 

Genius  fructifies  only  in  the  directions  in  which  the 
national  attention  is  canalized.  That  is  why  we  are 
to-day  building  magnificent  railway-stations,  but  no 
cathedrals,  except  imitations  of  European  models;  lux- 
urious private  dwellings  (which  latterly  have  manifested 
an  immense  improvement  in  taste),  but  no  national 
theatres.  That  is  why  our  creative  energy,  which  ought 
to  be  producing  literature  and  philosophy  of  more  than 
Elizabethan  splendour  and  more  than  Athenian  pro- 
fundity, is  being  drawn  off  into  commercial  enterprise. 
We  are  giving  our  life  to  acquiring  the  means  of  purchas- 
ing from  Europe  artistic  satisfactions  which  are  not 
congruous  with  the  special  inspirations  of  our  own  na- 
tional genius. 

This  phase,  of  course,  is  transitional,  and  the  situation 
is  not  desperate.  We  have  our  own  great  prophets  and 
poets.  We  are  even  beginning  to  discover  them.  Nor 
do  I  wish  in  the  least  to  disparage  the  spirit  which  has 
created  the  Panama  Canal,  and  which  expresses  itself 
1  Natural  Religion,  Pt.  ii,  chap,  iv  ("Natural  Religion  and  the  State.") 


260  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

in  such  novel  combinations  of  utility  and  magnificence 
as  the  two  great  railway  terminals  of  New  York  City, 
the  Union  Station  at  Washington,  and  the  Woolworth 
Building, — one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world  in  its  beauty, 
as  well  as  in  the  engineering  science  it  expresses.  But 
we  must  also  yoke  this  mighty  energy  and  inventiveness 
to  the  work  of  consciously  upbuilding  our  civilization  on 
its  aesthetic,  literary,  political  and  religious  sides. 


CONCLUSION 

THE    HOPE    OF    SPIRITUAL    UNIFICATION 

MY  purpose  throughout  this  book  has  been  to  draw 
attention  to  elements  of  religion  which  are  verifiable 
by  experience,  and  to  indicate  the  enormous  task,  and 
the  consequent  golden  opportunity,  which  lie  before 
the  Churches.  In  conclusion,  I  would  urge  that  if  the 
Churches  should  concentrate  their  attention  upon  these 
verifiable  elements,  they  would  not  only  render  a  service 
of  unprecedented  usefulness  to  mankind,  but  they  would 
also,  without  external  coercion  and  without  surrendering 
any  vital  principle,  be  insensibly  led  on  to  a  unity  of 
purpose  and  conviction  in  the  light  of  which  their  sec- 
tarian differences  would  sink  into  utter  insignificance. 
The  mediaeval  Church  was  right  in  the  high  valuation 
it  placed  upon  unanimity  of  spiritual  conviction.  It 
was  wrong  in  thinking  that  such  unity  could  be  brought 
about  by  coercion  and  by  the  suppression  of  liberty  of 
thought  and  discussion.  Such  a  course  can  produce 
only  a  maimed  intelligence  or  a  hypocritical  conformity. 
Out  of  the  struggle  between  the  authoritarian  principle 
and  the  demand  for  freedom  has  sprung  the  compromise 
called  toleration.  We  now  have  a  world  which  is  riven 
to  shards  on  the  spiritual  side,  and  has  almost  ceased  to 
regard  unity  of  inward  conviction  and  inspiration  as 
possible,  or  even  as  desirable. 

The  ultimate  reason  for  this  state  of  things  is  that  in 
the  life  of  to-day  there  is  no  general  sense  of  sovereign 
261 


262  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

and  unconditional  imperatives,  to  which  all  personal 
and  class  interests  ought  to  be  subordinated.  Chris- 
tianity, indeed,  embodies  such  an  imperative;  but  the 
Churches  have  lost  their  power  to  teach  it.  Their  own 
apostasy — their  own  repeated  sacrifices  of  principle  to  in- 
terest— have  enervated  them.  When  they  do  proclaim 
the  doctrine  that  the  gaining  of  the  whole  world  ought  to 
be  counted  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  interests  of 
the  soul,  their  message  falls  upon  ears  rendered  scornful 
and  incredulous  by  the  memory  of  the  way  in  which  the 
Church  has  repeatedly  denied  in  practice  the  doctrine 
which  its  lips  affirm.  Slowly  the  reduction  and  the 
denudation  of  the  claim  of  duty  upon  men  has  gone  on, 
until  for  most  to-day  the  very  word  means  no  more 
than  self-interest.  In  every  department  of  life  we  see 
what  Newman  called  "the  wild  living  intellect  of  man," 
yoked  to  the  steeds  of  passion  and  self-interest  instead 
of  to  high  self-obliterating  loyalties,  and  heading  for 
the  abyss  of  animalism  and  sensuality.  To-day  no  law 
is  obeyed  except  for  gain.  Money  and  power  are  desired 
not  as  means  of  larger  service  and  usefulness,  but  for 
the  sake  of  "the  dark  idolatry  of  self."  Marriage  is 
reduced  to  a  mere  convenience,  to  be  tolerated  or  aban- 
doned at  whim.  Even  such  self-restraint  as  is  practised, 
is  endured  only  for  the  sake  of  the  future  capacity  for 
enjoyment  which  it  promises  to  secure.  Self-advertise- 
ment, self-worship,  self-enrichment — these  three  alone 
animate  the  conduct  of  multitudes. 

No  nation  can  be  great,  no  nation  can  endure,  whose 
people  run  after  the  false  gods  of  self  and  class.  We  must 
regain  for  America  the  high  olden  loyalty  of  her  children, 
else  her  glorious  story  will  be  "gathered  like  a  scroll 
within  the  tomb."  Our  noble  and  puissant  nation  must 


CONCLUSION  263 

be  released  from  the  Comus-spell  that  has  bemused  her, 
and  freed  from  her  idolatry  of  pelf  and  luxury.  She  must 
become  aware  of  herself  as  entrusted  with  a  divine  mis- 
sion to  all  humanity,  and  all  her  children  must  learn  to 
care  far  less  for  personal  gain,  or  even  for  the  immediate 
advantage  of  their  class,  than  for  the  abiding  welfare  of 
the  nation,  whose  glory  is  her  power  of  universal  service. 

Now,  it  is  obvious  that  such  a  loyalty  as  is  needed 
can  be  nothing  less  than  a  religion.  It  may  not  bear 
the  Christian  name;  it  cannot  be  expressed  solely  in 
Christian  phraseology.  But  it  must  be  such  a  de- 
votion as  men  have  never  rendered  save  to  their  gods, 
and  such  as  cannot  be  inspired  by  any  motive  short  of 
what  is  counted  ultimately  sacred  and  inviolable.  This 
can  only  be  engendered  by  blending  the  ideal  inspira- 
tions of  all  religious  bodies,  and  by  a  re-interpretation  of 
religion  in  such  language  as  shall  show  its  identity  with 
the  highest  patriotism  and  its  vital  relation  to  the  en- 
during good  of  men  and  nations  in  the  life  that  now  is. 
Every  Christian  Church,  if  it  be  wise,  can  express  its 
message  in  such  terms.  If  it  cannot,  then  it  is  in  so  far 
not  truly  Christian;  and  its  inability  to  do  so  will  involve 
and  justify  its  own  speedy  supersession. 

But  what  I  am  contending  for  is  an  interest  more 
supreme  and  transcendent  than  the  maintenance  of 
Christianity  in  its  outward  form.  No  true  inheritor 
of  the  spirit  of  Christ  would  hesitate  for  a  moment  to 
say:  Let  the  name  of  Christ  perish  from  the  memory 
of  men,  if  only  so  is  it  possible  for  his  spirit  to  be  lifted 
into  sovereignty  over  their  hearts  and  wills.  It  some- 
times happens  in  the  spiritual  life,  though  not  in  out- 
ward nature,  that  that  which  is  sown  cannot  be  quick- 
ened except  it  die;  and  it  may  be  that  the  only  condition 


264  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

upon  which  the  spirit  of  Jesus  can  rise  into  newness  of 
life  as  an  impelling  force  in  future  civilization,  is  that 
outward  homage  to  him  shall  disappear.  I  do  not  sug- 
gest that  this  is  certain  or  even  likely  to  happen;  my 
point  is  that  it  were  better  so  than  that  his  name  should 
continue  to  be  outwardly  reverenced,  while  that  for 
which  he  lived  and  died  is  in  practice  trodden  under  foot. 
Short,  however,  of  such  a  complete  disappearance  of 
the  outward  form  of  historic  Christianity,  it  is  certain 
that  the  existing  Churches  must  make  radical  changes 
of  policy  and  doctrine  if  they  are  to  survive.  The  cur- 
rent apologetic  of  orthodoxy  is  worse  than  futile  as 
addressed  to  a  generation  trained  in  critical  philosophy 
and  in  the  methods  and  the  rigorous  standards  of  ex- 
actitude characteristic  of  modern  science.  The  Church 
to-day  stands  face  to  face  with  the  choice  between  its 
letter  and  its  life.  It  can  preserve  the  outward  forms 
of  traditional  orthodoxy  only  at  the  cost  of  the  stifling 
of  that  spirit  by  which,  and  for  the  sake  of  which,  they 
were  originally  created.  Christianity  now  stands  where 
Judaism  stood  at  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era. 
It  must  either  receive  and  blend  with  its  historic  ele- 
ments the  new  spiritual  life  that  is  surging  through  the 
world,  or  it  must  suffer  a  tragic  but  not  unmerited  super- 
session. More  than  half  of  America  is  to-day  without  a 
religion.  Without  a  religion  it  cannot  live,  nor  can  it 
live  with  the  religion  of  the  past.  The  experience  of  ages 
justifies  the  conviction  that  the  old  faith  cannot  again 
prevail,  except  by  an  adaptation  more  radical  and  far- 
reaching  than  any  it  has  hitherto  undergone.  The  ques- 
tion, then,  for  the  Churches  is  whether  they  value  the  let- 
ter more  than  the  spirit,  and  the  past  more  than  that  fu- 
ture, the  creation  of  which  is  entrusted  to  men  now  living. 


CONCLUSION  265 

Mere  toleration  of  differences  in  religion  is  as  beggarly 
and  unsatisfactory  a  compromise  as  it  would  be  in  our 
knowledge  of  the  external  world.  Our  feeling  in  regard 
to  science  is  that  universal  and  objective  truth  is  to  be 
found;  and  so  long  as  there  is  difference  of  belief  we  are 
unsatisfied.  Now,  no  man  who  is  convinced  of  the  uni- 
versal validity  of  the  principles  of  reason  can  doubt  that 
incontrovertible  truth  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  whatever 
it  may  prove  to  be,  is  at  least  attainable.  If  we  have  not 
reached  it,  this  is  because  our  methods  of  inquiry  have 
not  been  right,  or  have  not  been  adequately  developed. 
We  have  adhered  to  the  pre-scientific  methods  of  anti- 
quity in  the  search  for  ultimate  religious  truth,  and  the 
results  have  inevitably  proved  discouraging;  so  much  so 
that  we  have  even  surrendered  the  ideal.  We  have  grown 
so  accustomed  to  mere  individualistic  toleration  of  differ- 
ences of  view  with  regard  to  God  and  fate  that  we  have 
come  not  merely  to  acquiesce  in  perpetual  diversity  of 
conviction  as  unavoidable,  but  almost  to  count  it  good. 
The  proposer,  therefore,  of  a  plan  which  aims,  among 
other  things,  at  ending  it,  must  say  at  least  a  word  in 
explanation  of  his  desire  to  do  so. 

I  would  accordingly  remind  the  reader  that  it  is  not 
long  since  men  were  at  sixes  and  sevens  over  many  of  the 
questions  of  physical  science.  Not  only  did  unity  of 
belief  in  these  matters  appear  impossible,  but  it  was  not 
even  felt  to  be  necessary.  To-day,  however,  we  can  see 
that  the  immense  enterprises — in  engineering,  in  mining, 
in  the  building  up  of  systems  for  the  transportation  of 
men  and  commodities,  in  medicine  and  surgery,  in  the 
improvement  and  safeguarding  of  the  public  health,  and 
in  a  thousand  other  matters  of  vital  importance — which 
have  transformed  the  world  within  the  memory  of  men 


266  THE  RELIGION  OF  EXPERIENCE 

still  living,  could  never  have  even  begun  to  be  possible 
had  not  the  old  diversity  of  belief  in  regard  to  the  make 
of  the  physical  world  been  driven  out  and  replaced  by 
approximate  unity.  The  world  to-day  is  suffering  spirit- 
ually by  reason  of  the  diversity  of  religious  beliefs  even 
more  than  it  formerly  suffered  materially  through  the 
lack  of  unanimity  in  the  understanding  of  physical  facts. 

It  is,  moreover,  impossible  for  thoughtful  men  to  rest 
satisfied  with  a  state  of  affairs  which  inevitably  leaves 
men's  moral  and  spiritual  convictions  at  the  stage  of 
mere  beliefs.  Religion  will  not  rise  to  its  full  power  until 
experience  has  given  place  to  experiment,  and  until, 
wherever  possible,  conscientious  convictions  are  trans- 
formed into  demonstrated  truths. 

It  is  not  possible  at  present  to  forecast  the  immense 
achievements  in  the  regeneration  of  human  nature,  in 
the  wedding  of  mighty  genius  to  forms  of  unpredictable 
efficiency  and  beauty,  which  will  ensue  when  our  com- 
mand over  the  forces  that  generate  character  is  as  com- 
plete as  our  present  control  over  the  resources  of  the  ex- 
ternal world.  The  anticipation,  however,  of  such  an  era 
of  man's  godlike  self -fulfilment,  is  justified  by  every  ana- 
logy of  experience.  No  man  in  Francis  Bacon's  day  could 
have  foreseen  the  effect  of  his  proposals  to  cultivate  nat- 
ural knowledge  as  a  means  for  the  relief  of  man's  estate; 
and,  to  many,  his  visions  of  the  triumphs  to  be  won  by 
his  method  doubtless  seemed  baseless  and  fantastic.  The 
hope  of  the  world  in  religion  must  also  remain  vague.  It 
doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be.  But  it  is  as  rational 
to  anticipate  a  surpassing  glory  to  result  from  spiritual 
unification  as  it  would  be  foolish  to  attempt  to  delineate 
that  glory  in  detail  before  the  hour  of  its  manifestation 
shall  arrive. 


INDEX 


ADDISON,  159,  161 

^Esop's  fables  compared  with 
Christ's  parables,  102 

Agnosticism,  scientific  and  eth- 
ical, x 

ALCIBIADES,  128  notes,  158 

America,  national  task  of,  236; 
ideals  and  achievements  of, 
243  ff.;  problem  of  immigration 
in,  244,  251-5;  negro  problem 
of,  246-7;  unification  of,  250; 
evolution  of  civilization  in, 
255  ff- 

Apology,  Plato's,  127,  128;  cited, 
129  note;  131,  188,  215 

Areopagitica,  Milton's,  171 

ARISTOPHANES,  131, 134, 158 

ARISTOTLE,  113,  122,  180,  205, 
209,  216 

ARNOLD,  MATTHEW,  68,  75,  77  f., 
109, 137, 164,  175, 187,  192,  202 

Asceticism,  207  ff . 

Athanasian  Creed,  and  Personality 
of  God,  25  f. 

"Atheism":  of  Socrates,  132;  vul- 
gar conception  of,  133 

Athens,  religion  and  law  in,  227 

AUGUSTINE,  ST.,  his  City  of  God,  5, 
21-2,  94,  117,  214 

Authority,  perverter  of  moral 
judgment,  134  f. 


B 


BACON:  his  "idols,"  144,  161,  266 
Baconian  method,  176 
Banquet,  parable  of,  94 
Banquet,  Xenophon's,  128  note  2 
Baptism,  social  meaning  of,  24,  221 

of   Jesus,    four   differing 

accounts  of,  89 
BARCLAY,  ROBERT,  183 
BAXTER,  RICHARD,  n6note 
Beatific  Vision,  209 
Behaviour,  three  types  of,  69  f. 
Beliefs  not  tolerated  by  modern 

nations,  224  f. 
"Benefit  of  clergy,"  223 
BENNETT,  ARNOLD,  cited,  27 
BERGSON,  26;  his  elan  vital,  52; 
criticism  of,  53,  169;  on  extra- 
logical  mentality,   170,    183-4; 
on  duration,  198  f. 
BERNHARDI,  237 

Bible,  Protestant  theory  01,  44-5; 
current  attitude  towards,  75; 
revelation  in,  155;  inspiration 
of,  161  ff.;  Western  world  and 
the,  248-9 

Birth  of  Jesus,  legends  of,  88 
Blasphemy,  Socrates  charged  with, 

133 

Book  of  Mormon,  182 
BROWNE,  SIR  THOMAS,  193;  cited, 

196-7 


267 


268 


INDEX 


Buddhism,  113 

BUNYAN,  162 

BUTLER,     SAMUEL,     on     natural 
selection,  51-2 


Catholicism  and  nationality,  229 

Causes  and  conditions,  confusion 
of,  195  and  note 

Cave  men,  Plato's  allegory  of, 
i68f. 

CEBES,  203,  209  f. 

"  Choir  Invisible,"  George  Eliot's, 
191 

Christianity,  original  elements  of, 
5;  social  message  of,  14;  future 
of,  120  f.;  not  merely  hedonistic, 
125;  outlook  for,  263-4 

"Christian  Science,"  182 

Church  and  State,  218  ff.;  in  Eng- 
land, 221  ff.;  why  modern  States 
are  Churches,  223  ff. 

Churches,  dissensions  of,  x,  xi; 
Position  and  Outlook  of,  chap, 
i;  Causes  of  Comparative  Fail- 
ure of,  chap,  ii;  erroneous  in- 
dictment of,  2  ff.;  corruption  of, 
4;  standard  for  judging,  ibid.; 
preserved  the  fragments  of 
Graeco-Roman  civilization,  5  ff.; 
mediators  of  innovating  ideas, 
8;  membership  of,  in  U.  S.,  10  ff.; 
mistakes  of,  i8ff.;  distinctive 
functions  of,  28  ff.;  "institu- 
tional" work  of,  criticized,  ibid.; 
—  and  schools,  32  f.;  sum- 
mary of  reforms  needed  in,  41-2; 
relation  of,  to  nationality  and 


the  State,  217  ff.;  task  of  Amer- 
ican, 236,  242,  257,  261  ff. 
CHURCHILL,  WINSTON,  39 
Civilization,    evolution    of,    251, 

254  f- 

Clergy,  demands  made  upon,  27  f., 
31;  causes  of  decline  of  calibre 
of,  38  ff. 

CLIFFORD,  W.  K.,  cited,  20 
Commandment,  the  first,  227  note 
Communistic   practice   coinciding 
with  individualistic  theory,  219 
Compromise,  Morley's,  cited,  50 
COMTE'S  rejection  of  metaphysics, 

ix 

Consciousness-in-general,  64 
CONYBEARE,  F.  C.,  85  note 
Cosmopolitanism,  fallacy  of,  234; 

sound  ideal  of,  237,  239  ff. 
Creeds,  misuse  of,  24;  inadequacy 
of,  25;  value  of,  26;  need  for  re- 
interpretation  of,  40;  uniform- 
ity of  creed,  why  anciently  in- 
sisted on,  224  f. 
Crito,  Plato's,  129,  188 
CROMWELL'S  Ironsides,  162 
Cubists,  169 


"Daimon"  of  Socrates,  the,  128-9 

and  note 
Defence  of  Socrates,  Xenophon's, 

cited,  129 
Democracy,    present   crudity    of, 

156;  value  of,  250 
Dialogue,  the  Platonic,  as  literary 

vehicle,  157 

DlOTIMA,  167 

Docetic  heresy,  91 


INDEX 


269 


Ecce  Homo,  Seeley's,  78 

Ecclesiastical  Polity,  Hooker's,  45; 
cited,  139  note,  140 

Education,  Socratic  theory  of,  143, 
151;  monopoly  of,  by  the  me- 
diaeval Church,  222;  compulsory, 
by  modern  States,  ibid. 

Ego,  relation  of,  to  time,  199 

ELIOT,  GEORGE,  69,  191 

EMERSON,  95;  on  Jesus,  113;  on 
Plato,  156  note;  on  inspiration, 
i74f.;  178-9,  207,  258 

Empedodes  on  Etna,  Arnold's, 
quoted,  109-10 

ERASMUS,  44 

Eschatology,  98  note 

Established  Church,  the  English, 
221  ff. 

Eternal  punishment,  Plato's  myths 
of,  153;  Platonic,  Christian,  and 
Augustinian  doctrines  of,  214 

Eternity  and  time,  198,  202 

Ethical  Movement,  the,  12,  15  ff. 

Ethical  teaching  of  Socrates,  139  ff . 

Ethics,  Aristotle's,  cited,  205 

Eucharist,  23;  social  function  of, 
ibid.;  as  a  political  test,  225 

Eugenics,  Plato's  theory  of,  151 

Euthydemus,  Plato's,  146 

EUTHYDEMUS,  146-9 

Evangelists,  their  dependence  on 
Jesus,  84-5 

Evolution,  misunderstandings  of, 
49  ff.;  John  Morley  on,  50;  Berg- 
son  on,  52-3;  propounders  of  not 
materialists,  54,  194 

.Existence  and  Reality,  55  f.,  200 


Fathers,  Greek  and  Latin,  con- 
trasted, 7 

Federal  principle,  value  of  the,  251 

Fire-bringer,  Moody 's,  quoted,  154 

"Form,"  176 

Fox,  GEORGE,  183 

Freedom  of  religious  belief,  why 
tolerated,  224 

Futurists,  169 


Genealogies  of  Jesus  through 
Joseph,  88 

General  Will,  the,  74,  178 

Genius,  dynamics  of,  259 

Germany,  unification  of,  221;  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  criticism  of,  238 

God  and  the  Bible,  Arnold's,  77 

God,  Athanasian  Creed  on,  25  f.; 
Re-interpretation  of,  chap,  iii; 
experiential  basis  for  belief  in, 
43;  existence  of,  55;  theoretical 
and  practical  view  of,  57;  def- 
inition of  in  XXXIX  Articles, 
58;  need  of,  analyzed,  62;  per- 
sonality of,  64  f.;  elements  of 
perfection  of,  67;  psychological 
account  of,  68-9;  reality  of, 
70 ff.;  symbols  of,  72  ff.;  "God 
behind  the  gods,"  73;  dem- 
ocratic conception  of,  124; 
Socratic  conception  of,  133  and 
note;  the  Jewish,  248 

Gods,  common  function  of,  69; 
nature  of  tribal,  226 

Good,  nature  of  the,  139  ff. 


270 


INDEX 


Goodness  and  efficiency,  106  ff. 

the  divine,  Socrates  on 

133;  Mansel  and  Mill  on,  134  ff. 

Gorgias,  Plato's,  142,  153  and  note 

Gospels,  conditions  for  studying, 
76  ff.;  effects  of  higher  criticism 
on,  ibid.;  works  recommended 
for  elucidating,  77-9;  Schmiedel 
on,  79;  "harmonies"  of,  81;  prin- 
ciple for  criticizing,  114;  see  also 
titles 

Greece,  modern,  231 


personal,  190;  distinguished  from 
eternity,  197  ff.;  root  of  the 
desire  for,  212 

Individual,  sacredness  of  the,  66-7 

Inner  Light,  170,  183 

Inspiration,  chap,  vi;  Biblical, 
161  ff.;  Platonic  theory  of, 
i66ff.;  conditions  of  experienc- 
ing, 167;  definition  of,  185 

Isaiah,  185,  249 

Italy,  unification  of,  220  f. 


HEMINGE  and  CONDELL,  85 

HERVE,  GUSTAVE,  224,  235 

Higher  criticism,  77,  80 

Holy  Alliance  of  the  Peoples, 
Mazzini's,  cited,  239 

Holy  Ghost,  the,  179 

HOMER,  161 

HOOKER,  45;  his  Ecclesiastical 
Polity  cited,  139  note,  140 

Humanity  (the  Positivist  abstrac- 
tion), 190 

Humanity  and  nationality,  228-9 

HUXLEY,  on  the  Resurrection,  91, 
243 


Ideals,  reality  of,  68 

"Idols,"  the  Baconian,  144 

Imitation  of  Christ,  121 

Immigrant  population  of  America, 
243 ;  its  relation  to  the  Republic, 
244,  250;  problem  of  assim- 
ilating, 251-5 

Immortality,  chap,  vii;  must  be 


JAMES,  WILLIAM,  199 

JESUS,  leadership  of,  20  f.;  "Re- 
discovery" of,  chap,  iv;  few 
facts  known  concerning,  81;  his- 
toricity of,  82,  92;  no  contem- 
porary written  accounts  of,  82; 
genealogies  of,  through  Joseph 
as  his  father,  88;  resurrection- 
stories  of,  89  ff.;  sayings  of,  90, 
92,  101,  115;  idolatrous  attitude 
towards,  92;  Parables  of,  93  ff., 
105;  his  "secret"  teaching, 
95  ff.;  revolution  threatened  by, 
97;  his  answers  to  trick  ques- 
tions, 98-9  and  notes;  his  teach- 
ing of  non-resistance,  100  f.;  his 
realism,  103;  his  religious  in- 
tuition, 104;  secret  of  his  dem- 
ocratic faith,  112;  moral  origin- 
ality of,  114;  repudiation  of 
title  "Good  Master"  by,  115  f.; 
original  tradition  of,  117  f.;  has 
he  "had  his  day"?  118  f.,  263-4; 
real  resurrection  of,  122;  his 
teaching  on  salvation,  213 


INDEX 


271 


Jewish  nation,  struggle  for  exist 
ence  of,  231;  religious  patriot- 
ism of,  332,  248-9 

Jews,  connection  of  politics  and 
religion  among  the,  179,  221, 
226;  of  varying  nations,  dif- 
ferences among,  229  f. 

Jingoism,  236,  242 

JOB, 74 

John  (Gospel),  87  ff. 

Joseph,  genealogies  of,  88 

JOWETT,  BENJAMIN,  cited,  167, 
202,  216 

Judaism,  liberal,  leaders  of,  12 

JULICHER,  on  the  Parables,  94,  99 


Kaiser,  the,  221 

KALES,  A.  M.,  245  note 

KANT,  47,  121,  198 

Knowledge:  and  virtue,  143;  ob- 
stacles to,  144,  150;  origin  of, 
203 


Lazarus,  Parable  of,  in 

LEUBA,  J.  H.,  on  function  of  reli- 
gion, 70  and  note 

LEWIS,  REV.  ELVET,  2 

Liberalism,  British,  219 

Life,  problem  of  worth  of,  154 

LIGUORI,  S.  ALFONSO  DI,  73 

LIPPMANN,  W.,  ix 

Literature  and  Dogma,  Arnold's, 
77  f.;  cited,  137  note;  175,  192 

Logos,  48 

Luke  (Gospel),  85  ff.;  dependence 
on  Mark,  85;  contrast  with 


Matt.,  86-7;  problem  of  Sermon 
on  Mount  in,  99 


MACAULAY,  162;  on  Milton,  172 

note 

Macbeth,  164 

Machinery,  tyranny  of,  160 
Man,  spiritual  nature  of,  194  ff. 
Man  versus  the  State,  Spencer's,  219 
MANSEL,  134 
Mariolatry,  73 
Mark  (Gospel),  85,  87;  compared 

with   Matt,   and   Luke,   ibid.; 

human  traits  of  Jesus  in,  87; 

secrecy  of  Jesus  in,  95-6;  story 

of  Rich  Young  Man  in,  115  f. 
Marriage,  ecclesiastical  and  civil, 

222 

Materialism,  popular,  54;  of  Old 
Testament,  55,  157,  193 

Matthew  (Gospel),  85  ff.;  depend- 
ence on  Mark,  ibid.;  apologetic 
motive  of,  86;  Parables  omitted 
from,  ibid.;  contrast  with  Luke, 
86-7;  cited,  96;  problem  of 
Sermon  on  Mount  in,  99;  dis- 
tortion of  a  story  in,  115 

Mazzini,  221;  cited,  239,  241 

Meleager,  189 

"Melting-pot"  theory,  criticism 
of,  251  ff. 

Memorabilia  of  Socrates,  Xeno- 
phon's,  146  ff. 

Messiah,  Jesus  interpreted  as,  86 

Metaphysics,  ix,  56  ff.;  198  ff. 

Methods  of  Ethics,  Sidgwick's, 
cited,  208  note 


272 


INDEX 


MILL,  J.  S.,  58;  his  Examination  of 
Hamilton  cited,  135-6. 

MILTON,  as  prose-writer,  171; 
Macaulay  on,  172;  his  mental 
development,  i73f.;  his  Reason 
of  Church  Government  cited, 
ibid.;  controversial  works  of, 
i8of. 

Mind  and  body,  mystery  of,  193  f. 

Miracles,  Jesus's  repudiation  of, 
117 

MOODY,  W.  V.,  154 

Moral  law,  essence  of  selfhood, 
74;  universality  of,  241 

Morality,  basis  of,  152 

MORLEY,  JOHN,  cited,  50 

Mormonism,  182 

Myth,  Magic  and  Morals,  Cony- 
beare's,  85  note 

Myths,  religious,  72;  Plato's,  153 


N 

Nations,  relation  of,  to  their  cit- 
izens, 227  ff.,  to  humanity,  241; 
conditions  of  survival  of,  230  ff . 

Nationality,  Religion  and,  chap. 
viii;  spiritual  dynamics  of, 
220  ff.;  psychic  elements  of,  227; 
more  potent  than  sect  or  creed, 
229  ff.;  danger  of  misunder- 
standing, 233 ;  force  of,  for  good 
or  evil,  234  ff . ;  Mazzini  on,  239 

Natural  selection,  52 

Nature,  moral  indifference  of, 
taught  by  Jesus,  109;  ethical 
significance  of  the  doctrine,  no 

Navarino,  Battle  of,  231 


Negroes  in  America,  problem  of, 

246-7 

New  Freedom,  Wilson's,  245  note 
NEWMAN,  J.  H.,  10,  46,  262 
NIETZSCHE,  152 
Nonconformist  churches,  English, 

29  f. 
Novum  Organum,  Bacon's,  cited, 

144 


Over-Soul,  179;  nation  as  the,  228 


Parables  of  Jesus,  the,  93 ;  Schmidt 
on,  ibid.;  Jiilicher  on,  94; 
"secrecy"  of  their  teaching, 
95  ff.;  compared  with  ^Esop's 
fables,  102;  two  groups  of:  (i) 
Efficiency  Parables,  105  ff.;  (2) 
Ethical  Parables,  in  ff. 

Patriotism,  good  and  bad,  233; 
a  universal  moral  principle,  241; 
opposition  of  jingoism  to,  ibid.; 
Mr.  Tarkington  on,  242  note 

PAUL,  ST.,  his  Epistles,  83;  his  de- 
pendence on  Jesus,  84,  145;  his 
inspiration,  165  f.;  his  twofold 
view  of  resurrection,  213 

PENN,  WILLIAM,  183 

Phaedo,  Plato's,  129,  153,  188, 
192,  193,  195  note,  203,  204  note, 
207,  209,  211-12,  215 

Phaedrus,  Plato's,  132,  180 

Pharisee  and  Publican,  Parable  of, 
112  f. 

Philosophy,  47,  54  ff. 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  162 


INDEX 


273 


PLATO,  6,  47,  48,  54,  69,  113,  127, 
I5It  JSSj  Emerson  on,  156  note; 
dramatic  genius  of,  157-8;  on 
inspiration,  166  ff.;  his  rational- 
ism, 169,  192,  209;  on  eternal 
punishment,  214 

Poetry  and  myth,  function  of,  154 

Politics,  Aristotle's,  180 

Positivism,  maxims  of,  x;  and 
immortality,  190,  191 

"Power  not  ourselves,"  74,  175 

Priests  and  kings,  historic  relation 
of,  226 

Prodigal  Son,  Parable  of,  in  f. 

Progress,  evolution  and,  51 

Prophetic  idea  of  God,  the,  72 

Prophet  of  Nazareth,  Schmidt's, 
cited,  19  note,  79,  93-4 

Prophets,  their  inspiration,  162  ff. 

"Protestant  Episcopal"  Church, 
ii 

Protestantism,  original  self-con- 
tradiction in,  44  f.;  attitude  of, 
towards  authority  and  reason, 
45 ;  development  of,  46;  a  defect 
of,  73;  and  salvation,  125;  its 
doctrine  of  Biblical  inspiration, 
162  ff. 

Punishment,  purposes  of,  153 

Purgatorian  doctrine,  the  Roman 
Catholic,  125 

Purgatorian  doctrine,  the  Pla- 
tonic, 213  ff. 

Puritanism,  inspiration  of,  162 


Q 

Quakerism,  170,  183 
Quakers,  Australian,  224 


RALEIGH,  SIR  W.,  77 

Reality,  distinguished  from  exist- 
ence, 55;  volitional  category,  57, 
59;  religious  craving  for,  60; 
transcendent  order  of,  201 

Reason  of  Church  Government, 
Milton's,  cited,  173  f. 

Religio  Medici,  Browne's,  cited, 
196-7 

Religion,  sociological  function  of, 
xi;  definition  of,  69;  and  na- 
tionality, chap,  viii;  individual- 
istic conception  of,  218;  connec- 
tion of,  with  the  State,  220;  good 
and  bad  religions,  233 

Religious  needs,  distinguished 
from  doctrines,  xi  f.;  nature  of, 

60;  how  satisfied,  61  f.; 

task,  establishment  of  right 

relations,  66;  practices 

and  their  results,  70  f.;  

functions  of  modern  "secular" 

States,  221  ff.;  truth, 

possibility  of  attaining,  265 

Republic,  Plato's,  133  and  note; 
142;  151  and  notes;  168  f. 

Resurrection  of  Jesus,  the  stories 
of,  89  ff. 

Revelation,  divine,  meaning  of, 
155;  in  each  national  literature, 
156;  the  American,  248  ff. 

Book  of,  165 

Ritual,  use  and  abuse  of,  36  f. 

Roman  Church,  iof.;  its  con- 
troversy with  Protestantism,  45 ; 
its  appeal  to  private  judgment, 
ibid.;  and  nationalism,  229 


274 


INDEX 


ROOSEVELT,  THEODORE,  237-8 
ROUSSEAU,  219 
RUSKIN,  140 

RUSSELL,  BERTRAND,  cited,  51 
Russia,  abolition  of  serfdom  in, 
246  f. 


Sacraments,    magical    and    social 

functions  of,  23  f. 
Salvation,  nature  and  conditions 

of,  124  f. 
Saviours,  i24f. 
SCHMIDT,  NATHANIEL,  19  note,  79; 

cited,  93-4 
SCHMIEDEL,  PAUL,  on  the  Gospels, 

79 

SCHOONMAKER,  E.  D.,  2 

SCHWEITZER,  ALBERT,  98  note 
SEAMAN,  SIR  OWEN,  160  f. 
SEELEY,  SIR  J.,  cited,  xiii;  his  Ecce 
Homo,  78;  on  nationality,  228, 
232,  258 

Self -depreciation,  in  all  ages,  160 
Self -Reliance,  Emerson's,  cited,  175 
Sermon  on  the  Mount:  to  whom 
addressed?   99!.;   not  a   "ser- 
mon,"   too;   its   non-resistance 
doctrine,  101 
SHAKESPEARE,    cited,     104    and 

note;  155,  171 
SHELLEY,  201 
SIDGWICK,  cited,  145,  208  note 

SlMMIAS,  202,  209  f. 

SMITH,  JOSEPH, 182 

Socialism,  spread  of,  due  to  Euro- 
pean War,  234;  fallacy  in  Marx's 
theory  of,  235 


Socialists,  the  German,  235 

Society  of  Friends,  183 

SOCRATES,  xiii,  20,  54,  69;  "Res- 
urrection" of,  chap,  v;  "method 
and  secret"  of,  126,  138-9, 
146  ff.;  comparison  with  Jesus, 
126,  130;  influence  on  contem- 
poraries, ibid.;  parentage  of, 
ibid.;  as  soldier — his  hardihood, 
128  and  note;  personal  ugliness 
of,  ibid.;  Plato's  and  Xenophon's 
pictures  of,  130;  Delphic  oracle 
on,  131;  difference  of,  from  the 
Sophists,  ibid.;  "atheism"  of, 
132  f.;  his  theory  of  the  Good, 
139  ff.;  on  education  of  rulers, 
142,  151;  weakness  of  his  ethical 
doctrine,  145-6;  his  conversa- 
tion with  Euthydemus,  146-9; 
his  personality,  as  depicted  by 
Plato,  158-9;  his  account  of 
inspiration,  167  f.,  180;  story  of 
his  death,  i88ff.;  on  pre- 
existence  of  the  soul,  203;  on 
mutual  generation  of  opposites, 
ibid.;  on  self-denial,  206;  on 
nature  of  soul,  210;  grandeur  of 
his  spirit,  216 

"  Son  of  man,"  19  note. 

Sophists,  Socrates  and  the,  130  f., 
150 

Soul,  nature  of  the,  210 

Space  and  Time,  56 

SPENCER,  HERBERT,  cited,  65,  219 

Spiritual  unification,  obstacles  to, 
261-2;  possibility  and  promise 
of,  265-6 

State,  the  Platonic,  143,  151 

STEWART,  J.  A.,  153  note,  154 


INDEX 


275 


STRAYER,  REV.  P.  M.,  28;  cited, 

3 1  note 

Symbols,  religious,  72  ff. 
Symposium,    Plato's,    cited,    128 

notes,  129, 158, 167, 168 
Synoptics:  see  Gospels,  and  under 

titles 


Talents,  Parable  of  the,  107  f. 

TARKINGTON,  B.,  39,  242  note 

Tartarus,  214-15 

TATIAN,  81 

Technique  and  genius,  170 

Teleology,  evolution  and,  51 

TENNYSON,  70,  118 

TERTULLIAN,  214 

Theology,  compared  with  astrol- 
ogy and  science,  xiif.;  the  So- 
cratic,  133  ff. 

Time,  nature  of,  199  f. 

Toleration,  limits  of,  in  modern 
nations,  224  f.;  an  unsatisfac- 
tory compromise,  265 

Transubstantiation,  23 

Trinity,  basis  of  doctrine  of,  179 

TYRELL,  GEORGE,  10;  his  Chris- 
tianity at  the  Cross-Roads  cited, 
60;  criticism  of,  61  f. 


Unitarianism,  Emerson's,  179 
Utilitarianism,  intuitional  basis  of, 
208  and  note 


Variation,  "spontaneous,"  52 
Verification  in  religion,  xii 
Vineyard,  Parable  of  Labourers  in, 

112 
Virgin  Birth,  25 

W 

WATSON,  WILLIAM,  cited,  195 
Westminster  Confession,  209 
Will,  the  General,  74,  178 
Wilson,  President,  245  note 
Women's     equality     with     men, 

Plato  on,  151  and  note 
"Wrestings  of  Scripture,"  116 


XENOPHON,  127,  128  note;  cited, 
129,  1462. 


Yahwe,  227  note 


ULFILAS,  7 

Underworld,  Platonic  myth  of  the, 
213  ff. 


ZANGWILL,  I.,  cited,  55,  251 


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